All tagged Moving Pictures
The prequel focuses on Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), the future villainous President Snow of the original Hunger Games series, as a young man, following the events that lead to his “breaking bad.”
Director Lee Cronin, a relative newcomer on the horror scene, ably directs the film, which pays homage not only to Raimi’s frenetic camera movements but to other classic horror films as well, including an incredible homage to The Shining.
The story of Air is about the real-life ragtag group of executives in Nike’s, at the time, nearly non-existent basketball shoe line, who come together to try and land Michael Jordan as a spokesperson for their basketball shoes against all odds. In the hands of Ben Affleck’s directing and an all-star cast of incredible performances, the film is elevated and you feel like you’re watching something a little more substantial.
Knock at the Cabin is a tense thriller about—maybe?—the end of the world, where four strangers invade the vacation rental of a gay couple and their daughter. What follows is a muddled, pseudo-philosophical exploration on the nature of belief and what one would do—or wouldn’t do—to stop the world from ending.
Where the movie actually sings is in its dark meditation on grief, loss, and the weight of responsibility left to the living. Overall, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is an interesting entry in the Marvel universe, but a mixed bag to be sure.
Tár and The Banshees of Inisherin, two of the year’s best films, examine the power and cost of art to sublime ends, admittedly through very different lenses. And both films will undoubtedly be strong contenders for the upcoming awards season.
In terms of performances, The Rock gives perhaps his least interesting of his career. The decision to make Black Adam essentially charmless does not play in The Rock’s favor. My reading of that data is that Black Adam is a bad movie, but lots of people like it anyway or, at the very least, are willing to pay to see something that isn’t very good. Which, in my experience of it, checks out.
It proves a film does not need to do away with jaw-dropping action sequences and classic movie structures to make a film that is not only extremely entertaining but emotional and thought-provoking. The epic film centers on an all-female group of warriors, the Agojie, in 19th century Africa, as they defend their homeland from rival kingdoms funded by slave traders.
Our movie reviewer Mo Burford takes a look at two big films this summer, Nope and Bullet Train. Nope had Burford saying yep to a second showing in two days. “Bullet Train is fun, especially if you like lots of hand-to-hand combat and big, mildly comedic characters; and it was a fine use of eleven bucks during a scorcher of a summer,” he writes.
Top Gun: Maverick is a little silly on the surface, but at its heart it is about jaw-dropping aerial maneuvers, which left me feeling like a little kid excited to go home and pretend to be a death-defying pilot myself.
I have watched darn near every Marvel movie that has come out in the last 11 years, and I have to be honest, I’m quite sick of them. However, I’m happy to report that Doctor Strangle and the Multiverse of Madness was (mostly) a happy departure from the norms of the Marvel Comic Universe and that I genuinely enjoyed watching it.
It’s beautiful and sad and fun and amazing to behold up on the big screen. What else can you ask for from a movie? This is the superhero movie I have been waiting for—but it’s also not just a superhero movie. Daniels (director duo Dan Kwan and Daniel Schienert) have truly created a marvel, but thankfully not for Marvel. The action in Everything Everywhere All at Once was some of the best I’ve seen in years.
Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story is as emotionally captivating as it is breathtaking to behold. The singing, dancing, acting, and direction all come together in a nearly perfect union to bring an old story into the present.
Mo Burford reviews The Power of the Dog. It is Jane Campion’s most recent film, and her first in ten years, The Power of the Dog is at its center a reevaluation of the myth of the old west, and with it the myth of masculinity that follows in its shadow, carving a hole in the center of each character’s life.
