Through impressive performances from Support the Girls star Regina Hall and This is Us Emmy winner Sterling K. Brown, Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul has caricatures so believable that they transcend the winking-at-the-camera trope with vivid potency. There’s another level of “commitment to the bit.” We, the audience are not normally supposed to believe what we see from the characters but, with these two, we buy it.
Read MoreEven now at 76 years old, long past his own peaks and valleys, Sly remains a proven talent and beloved favorite. Nothing will probably break that or ever take that away. Nonetheless, this writer feels like “You still got it!” respect towards Stallone, as a complete performer, is still worth acknowledgment. Thanks to the Rocky and Rambo series, most go straight to the muscles. The special thing is Samaritan shows how much Sylvester Stallone still offers as an actor that has nothing to do with the ripped physicality that made him famous.
Read MoreIt would be really easy for a movie like Breaking, tip-toeing in the Dog Day Afternoon direction, to turn up the brightness of the pariah spotlights and crank up the volume on the injustice pulpit loudspeakers. That’s not so here. Director Abi Damaris Corbin resists the temptations to pound messages and shout showy monologues. He and his screenwriting partner Kwame Kwei-Armah uphold the simple and poignant principles that were at hand with this true story and on the central figure’s mind during a fateful July day in 2017.
Read MoreAnyone who’s watched an MGM movie for a century has heard the majestic pop of a lion’s roar. That’s all well and good, but the part that’s even better is the growling lead-up. The guttural purr of a lion is all-natural, distinctive, and menacing. The sound is an evocative draw and an arresting warning at the same time. It’s a precursor to danger. You hear it and your human instincts go off like fireworks because, as a wise character in Beast says, if it’s between you and the lion “it is not a fight you are designed to win.”
Read MoreThere is incomplete depth all over the place in Summering. Examining the relationships between these girls and their loyal mothers, the many absentee male examples, and the legitimate anxieties accompanying the apprehensive change between elementary and secondary school are heavy obstacles not easily healed by pouring on literal or figurative warmth. So much is glazed over for sunny rays, amateur detective aimlessness, and scary sideshows.
Read MoreSometimes, the simplest premises are all you need, and Scott Mann’s thriller Fall has that going for it in spades. Long has the subgenre of survival thrillers flourished in this area. By ascending a 2,000 foot antenna in the desert (masterfully so in its own perfect teaser trailer), Mann and his co-writer Jonathan Frank have picked a unique and uncomplicated setting. The film’s characters and camera explore its peculiarity and scale. True to its name, Fall’s plot exploits mortal fears and gets creative with the desperate measures people reach to keep kicking and screaming with life.
Read MoreThere is no star-fueled preening on this no-name cast. The body count is patient, yet raised to a frightful level. The kills are often quick and brutal. Prey stays precisely locked into the relentless gear and exciting pace this legendary movie monster threat has long deserved.
Read MoreWhile Jo Koy and Chandrasekhar are amiable enough to keep the content inclusive, newbies to Filipino quirks may misread what and why something is the butt of a joke. They’re not going to laugh like those in the know or, more appropriately, those in the family. What was supposed to introduce and celebrate an under-represented culture may set it back a little bit too, in the name of trying to gain popularity. The same result may come to Easter Sunday and its star. The cursory introduction is now out of the way. Next time, let’s see Jo Koy play someone other than himself and see if he can unleash true chops.
Read MoreWith its buoyant humor and stellar energy, DC League of Super-Pets is the finest pampering treat we’re going to get and it’s a welcome one, even if a treat like this is a tad on the unhealthy side. With no apologies to Joss Whedon, Zack Snyder, or anyone else, it took bringing in a bunch of animal characters, the writers of The LEGO Batman Movie, and shifting to animation to give us the best theatrical Justice League movie we’ve had to date.
Read MoreTo put it more casually and in a way fitting the movie, horses say “nope” with fight-or-flight responses faster than and far before us humans. When Nope pushes your buttons and raises your pulse rate, follow what the horses do and you’ll fare well. Alas, we know humans behave differently and so does Jordan Peele. He knows man’s curiosity, perceived dominance, and other courage-warping temptations bend people to test survivability beyond their instinctual triggers until their own exit point or fatal failure.
Read MoreThe premise of Alone Together may suggest serendipity that is too easy. If this was Nancy Meyers, the threads of this movie would all end in laughs. Instead, the dramatic difficulties fleshed out by Katie Holmes and her cast prove otherwise. The direction and storytelling grace of Holmes’ results are very praiseworthy, especially during this continuing pandemic.
Read MoreCombining Cumming’s lifting presence, snippets of archival TV coverage, and the animated sequences, My Old School has beguiling charm mirroring the fascinating central figure and the wry smiles on the faces of the Bearsden alumni telling their yarns. Viewers will absorb this tall tale and ask how much fraudulence is either acceptable or too much in a true-life “fake it until you make it” story. There is an irreverent delight to be had measuring that scale person-to-person and case-by-case.
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