Directing his fifth feature length film, Steve Buscemi had us at Tessa Thompson. That’s an immediate victory. Go ahead and close your eyes. Picture Tessa and hear her voice. If you’re hearing her approachable tone and timbre in softer roles like Passing or Sylvie’s Love before her heroic bellows in the Thor and Creed franchises, you’re the right kind of cinephile and have dialed in to the proper Tessa Thompson.
Read MoreWith confidence and integrity, Creed III has been created with outright strategy. This third entry has timed its moment to show that it has reached a maturation point to continue forward without Sylvester Stallone. Making his feature debut as a director, franchise star Michael B. Jordan represents and demonstrates a new level of command and authority. Moreover, rather than re-assembling and relying on more family trees, Creed III finds a very penetrating and personal singular focus for its choice of ominous opposition.
Read MorePaired perfectly as a double-feature follow-up to this summer’s spacefaring Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok is a raucously rad roller coaster that shoots rainbows out of every digitally-rendered pore. Blasting with energetic pace in the complete opposite direction from the dreary and grayish Game of Thrones Lite tone of Thor: The Dark World, this new chapter is a cinematic box of Crayola crayons laced with dynamite.
Read MoreTake away every rooted piece of cheesy disconnect and disdain you have calcified in your hearts and minds for whatever bloated quality you remember or assigned to the six-film "Rocky" series and shelf it immediately. The spin-off film "Creed" is a new tangent that gracefully and respectfully builds from the nostalgic anchor that comes with the "Rocky" territory, but grows to never be bound by that history for a second. Ryan Coogler's film successfully strives to be its own bold and rousing saga fitting of the shared connection.
Read More"Selma," whose name echoes the history being told, is one of those films that gets history right, honors it, entertains you without sacrificing the real thing, and moves you to no end. Anchored by an amazing lead performance from David Oyelowo as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Selma" has the ability to break and shatter the hardest of souls, thicken your pulse, and devour your tissue box. The experience is entirely worth all of that trouble. Best of all, it earn that emotion from you. Dare I say, "Selma" might be even better than last year's Best Picture winner "12 Years a Slave." That's the level of impact we're talking about.
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