Searching Review
RATING: (3 STARS) There are a thousand Searching‘s in the history of both film and TNT, but none quite look and feel like the one made by director Aneesh Chaganty and starring John Cho. Some have said it’s the first film to really get the digital age. I don’t think that’s quite true. (If it […]
A Star Is Born (2018) Review
RATING: (4 STARS) Though A Star Is Born has been made now four times, the 2018 version directed by Bradley Cooper and starring Cooper and Lady Gaga (in her first major film performance), is my first experience with these story beats. Of course, they’re not unfamiliar ones. It doesn’t take intimate familiarity with the Janet […]
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Review
RATING: (1.5 STARS) Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park stands the test of time. It’s a remarkable action-horror hybrid that knows its greatest strength is the sense of awe. When Sam Neill turns Laura Dern’s head toward the real, live dinosaurs for the first time, it’s transcendent. The series only ever reached that point again once—in the […]
Eighth Grade Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) Over the last few years, the horror genre has experienced a sort of renaissance at least partially on the back of some exemplary art-house titles released by A24, including The Witch and Hereditary. The studio’s latest horror film is a very different sort of movie. Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade doesn’t feature ghosts […]
Ocean’s 8 Review
RATING: (3 STARS) Ocean’s movies are tough to get wrong. It’s true that Ocean’s 8 is the first (at least this century) that’s been made by someone other than the incomparable Steven Soderbergh. But as good as his direction and sensibilities were for Ocean’s 11, 12 (especially), and 13, it wasn’t hard to imagine a […]
Mission: Impossible—Fallout Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) For the longest time, the Mission: Impossible franchise felt disjointed. Different directors—Brian De Palma, John Woo, J.J. Abrams, Brad Bird—brought different styles to essentially the same story, and the supporting cast, while consistently enjoyable, was always changing to the point that it was difficult to connect with anyone outside of Tom Cruise’s […]
Ready Player One Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) Steven Spielberg became one of the most beloved filmmakers in the history of the medium on the backs of blockbusters like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., and Jurassic Park that transported viewers into fantastical worlds where anything seemed possible. Ready Player One is perhaps his […]
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
RATING: (3.5 STARS) Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, from Oscar-winning director Morgan Neville, is something of a safe lob down the middle for the adult movie-going public in 2018. Nostalgia and empathy are two of the strongest emotional pulls when it comes to non-fiction filmmaking. This film has loads of the former. Fred Rogers the […]
