Film Reviews

R | 1h 31min | Action, Comedy, Crime | 24 August 2018 (USA) What’s the difference between “Christopher Robin” and “The Happytime Murders,” both in movie theaters now and both featuring stuffed toys that “act” with actual people? The former has a good message for children but will bore adults silly, and the latter is […]

After an unexpected five-day opening reaching $34.7 million over the weekend, the movie “Crazy Rich Asians” has received praise from the public, and even some very high-profile fans. Actress Emma Watson wrote on her Twitter account, “✨🎥 Went to see my #TimesUp sisters @ConstanceWu and @gemma_chan in #CrazyRichAsians today. Their performances were pitch perfect! Love you […]

R | 1h 35min | Action, Adventure, Crime | 17 August 2018 (USA) What’s the only thing missing from Mark Wahlberg’s pretty perfect life? As I’ve said before, it’s been a long time since former rapper Marky Mark modeled Calvin Klein underwear on Times Square billboards, and that was already a pretty perfect life. Now, […]

PG-13 | 1h 53min | Action, Horror, Sci-Fi | 10 August 2018 (USA) It’s summer! Time for yet another shark movie! Nobody can re-do “Jaws,” although every shark movie since that 1975 classic has been basically a “Jaws” sequel. The ripple effect was prodigious. I’ve never gone in the ocean since. That stupid rubber shark […]

R | 1h 30min | Comedy | 24 August 2018 (USA) Last summer I rode with high-school classmate John and his biker crew—a bunch of ex-military, construction-worker Harley riders. We ended up at a Tilted Kilt down in Jersey. Are you familiar with Tilted Kilts? It’s a restaurant chain that exclusively employs a number of […]

The upcoming all-Asian film “Crazy Rich Asians” has reaped considerable success, with a 77 out of 100 rating on Metacritic, as well as 21 total positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, earning it a 100 percent fresh rating, according to Entertainment Weekly. The storyline of “Crazy Rich Asians” was adapted from the novel by Kevin Kwan. […]

R | 1h 57min | Action, Comedy | 3 August 2018 (USA) Mila Kunis—love her. Actually, I’m quite jealous of her husband, Ashton Kutcher. Mila Kunis is very beautiful. And very funny. But she just can’t make this “Spy” comedy stinker do anything other than that. First, there was the James Bond story by Ian […]

PG-13 | 2h 27min | Action, Adventure, Thriller | 27 July 2018 (USA) The artifice on which the “Mission Impossible” movies are based is the wearing of the latex masks. Scan someone’s face—bang—a hyper-realistic mask with perfect hair follicles materializes. Slap a Band-Aid tech thingy over your vocal chords—Shazam!—you sound exactly like whomever the Band-Aid […]

R | 2h 14min | Action, Crime, Thriller | 20 July 2018 (USA) Is Denzel Washington’s character in “The Equalizer 2” perhaps Prince T’Challa’s non-vibranium-enhanced, black-ops-agent uncle? I think so. Actually, the real question here is: Is agent Robert McCall secretly using vibranium, but director Antoine Fuqua is hiding that fact from us? Because agent […]

R | 1h 34min | Comedy | 13 July 2018 (USA) Do you remember eighth grade? I have good memories, but the quiet-but-potent “Eighth Grade” reminded me how much I’d forgotten the sheer pain of it all. Middle school is a rite of passage—a pilgrimage, or an odyssey, trying to get to the Land of […]

R | 1h 30min | Biography, Drama, History | 13 July 2018 (USA) Storywise, “Shock and Awe” could have been a contender; it could have been great. The problem is, it comes too close on the heels of “Spotlight” and “The Post,” two crackling newsroom dramas that, long after 1976’s “All the President’s Men” had […]

R | 2h 2min | Action, Crime, Drama | 29 June 2018 (USA) So, the Mexican border wall? “Sicario 2” is obliquely about that wall and makes a decent case for building one. The original “Sicario” (2015) was an under-the-radar hit, a mule-kick actioner about the nightmarish, MS-13 gang-populated drug cartels on the U.S.–Mexico border, featuring […]

PG-13 | 1h 58min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi | 6 July 2018 (USA) For a lightweight comic book movie, “Ant-Man and the Wasp” addresses some seriously profound esoteric and scientific issues. We’ll get to those later. Suffice it to say, the second installment of the “Ant-Man” franchise, under the giant umbrella of the Marvel Studios […]

1h 30min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller | June 29, 2018 (USA) Alice (Ruth Wilson) grew up on a Northern Yorkshire sheep farm. Now, she’s seeing the world via the international sheep-shearer circuit—lots of sweating, bleating, b-a-a-a-h-ing, and cascading wool. Then, news that her father (Sean Bean of “The Lord of the Rings”) has gone to […]

PG-13 | 2h 8min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi | 22 June 2018 (USA) Just yesterday, in the men’s room, this 6-year-old Chinese boy, washing his hands, suggested to me (apropos of nothing): “Triceratops!” I quickly countered with “T. rex!” He said, “Stegosaurus!” I said, “Carnotaurus!” He said, “I don’t know Carnotaurus.” I said, “Aha! Oh, […]

PG-13 | 1h 50min | Action, Comedy, Crime | 8 June 2018 (USA) Hollywood recycles, composts, and grows new story-gardens. It retrofits, jury-rigs, jerry-builds, and cobbles. Take the “Ocean’s” franchise: exit the dudes, bring on the ladies. What do we get? An exchange of the bad-boy nouveaux Rat Pack for bad-girl high fashion. Is it […]

PG-13 | 1h 37min | Drama, Music | 8 June 2018 (USA) One of life’s most confusing situations for young people is figuring out that one’s dominant talent in life might not be the deciding factor in finding one’s life’s work. As they say, vocation is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s […]

PG | 1h 58min | Animation, Action, Adventure | 15 June 2018 (USA) “The Incredibles” has always been the rootin’-tootin’-est and most engaging of all the superhero franchises. The original “Incredibles” debuted 14 years ago, predating Marvel’s “Iron Man” by four years. It’s top-shelf largely because Disney’s Pixar, at this point, is pretty much synonymous […]

PG-13 | 1h 34min | Documentary, Biography | 8 June 2018 (USA) “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” in my day, was the butt of many jokes. When I got to college in 1978, there was a “National Lampoon” comedy bit circulating in the dorms that had Mr. Rogers as a child molester, with parents trying to sign […]

PG-13 | Comedy | 18 May 2018 (USA) “Rage against the dying of the light,” said poet Dylan Thomas. An understandable sentiment, to be sure. But I wonder if he’d take that to include meaning, say, that elderly ladies should read “Fifty Shades of Grey” and get exceedingly hot and bothered by S&M soft porn? […]