As a short-form storyteller, Marcellus Cox nails this thematical platform with his dialogue, and Cofield gives those lines the proper meaningful heft. All in all, the previous foreboding question remains for where Jamarcus’s life can go after this new partnership. The low angles and those aforementioned shadows which frame his home life are juxtaposed with the symbolic blue sky of potential above that ballfield.
Read MoreUnshy with its sorrow, the film finds lift in showing one person helping another see why they survived when others they care for did not. There’s an aim to making choices for how one can and should endure after hurtful losses, and it starts with forgiving yourself. Hopeful and reflective lessons like that—delivered with dignity and put to film for impressionable audiences—will always have a vital place for thoughtful entertainment.
Read MoreIt is the kind of dangerous amusement that advances the entire “eat the rich” schtick, even if there’s not a heap of thicker or more brazen commentary with it. Skipping the larger lectures, How to Make a Killing hovers at the amusing level more than a firebranded one. Not everything has to be a societal wrecking ball or message movie.
Read MoreThe passionate nucleus and alluring aura here are still exceptionally strong and superior, in many ways, to previous film adaptations. While it may be blackly moody and garish for pruder crowds, this Wuthering Heights is precisely the big-screen escapade ornately fashioned to fluster the hot-and-bothered in all the best ways.
Read MoreFrom dramatizing or even romanticizing whistleblowers and activists to revolutionaries and rebels, these types of “based on actual events” stories have been featured in outstanding films that have stirred up their fair share of civil disobedience and positive social change. While Dead Man’s Wire rips from a nearly half-century-old headline instead of a modern one, this engrossing comeback film for director Gus Van Sant waylays its own inspiring level of personal and public vindication that echoes today.
Read MoreBy patiently unfurling extra story depth out of what could have been a cocktail napkin story idea that rolled from one set of dirty bedsheets to another with little further development than fulfilling horny kicks. When things get harsh and dicey, and the roasting commentary on privilege becomes more apparent, Feig still varnishes with a suave coolness that is undeniably appealing.
Read MoreHugh Jackman, showing off his guitar-plucking talent onscreen with his well-known golden pipes, is eminently qualified for a movie like Song Sung Blue. His musical theater roots made him a cinch to be the consummate frontman for this jukebox musical. The more impressive revelation is Kate Hudson, bringing her lifelong piano skills and singing voice back to the big screen alongside her best attempt at a Wisconsin squawk. There is zero fake-it-til-you-make-it cheating or shortcuts with these two, and their combined charisma is dynamite.
Read MoreMake a movie or show about a real-life serial killer with an actual body count of documented victims that used to live among us, and you’re frosting spines, locking your doors, and doom-scrolling the true story. Make a sly, stylish, spooky, or quirky movie of imaginary people getting slain in grandiose fashion, and you’re popping extra popcorn, smiling with delight, and relaxing anxiety-free on your couch. What a funny and fascinating development that is!
Read MoreTo fully accept the societal and emotional terrains of Hikari’s outstanding dramedy Rental Family, one is required not so much to make an enormous leap into a lurid scenario, but rather, let’s say, a long step. You will need a stretched lunge forward that closes the typical arm’s length of observational distance from something you don’t entirely know or accept. That gingerly-taken step merges you into a different comfort zone than your own
Read MoreMatching the changing weather and seasons happening in much of the world during the time of its illustrious release, Wicked For Good requires more than one firm temperature check, if you will. This bookend finale asks a great deal of its audience with a decidedly different mood, as the plot leaps five years ahead in time from the events of last year’s Wicked. Much of the bright, sunny, and friendly school-aged singing and dancing has evolved to power ballads that emote the traumatic heft of current circumstances.
Read MoreRichard Linklater, through thick and thin over the years, has never sunk as low as where Lorenz Hart finished his life and career, partially because he, too, has the same inextinguishable zest to challenge and create, and puts it on screen every chance he gets. Keep going, Richard. We’re here for it.
Read MoreYou couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried, and even if you could, how many people would believe you? Better yet, how many folks would offer the classic exclamatory reaction of “They need to make a movie about that!” Well, your wish has been granted for a zany tale such as this by the unpredictable, unshy, and uncompromising Roofman, starring the newly middle-aged Channing Tatum in one of the most entertaining yarns in recent memory.
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