All that frost and frost is precisely the sordid tone and temperature of Cold Copy. The drama at hand is not seeking comfort or heroism within the championed profession. It’s a duel of who prods enough to get the last word or final competitive undercut. While plenty interesting, Cold Copy may or may not be the kind of seedy dive you are willing to embrace.
Read MoreForging this more mature path, Ariana DeBose and Masha Mashkova become the invaluable and cautiously wise characters willing to contemplate risks before acting on them. They are welcome and instantly engaging presences for discerning science fiction audiences. Still, those more casual crowd arriving to I.S.S. thirsty for spectacle will wish– and not be entirely wrong in doing so– the movie set off more incendiary moments higher in the sky than the ones far away on the ground.
Read MoreThe movie is here to make people feel by beautifying truths, creating kindred spirits, and it does so without losing or skimping an ounce of the subject’s powerful commentary smoldering with fire-branded parallels spanning the globe. One now exists to enhance the other. Origin can and should be a door-opener to Wilkerson’s work and the immense amount of testimonies, reflections, and avenues of learning that do not fit in a single film or book. Few movies generate as much library homework as tissue boxes to replace, but here we are, lifted better in our lives for receiving both assignments.
Read MoreAs Jane and Will’s mutual chapters get closer to their as-yet-unrevealed thirtysomething present situations, the chemistry between the actors increases. More importantly, the maturity of the romantic risks involved also increases. For a movie that started as hot-and-bothered as it did, the pendulum swing to dramedy heaviness of what’s really going on with these two in Which Brings Me to You is welcome and precarious at the same time. Like the leap the characters need to make to be better together, the 24-hour shorthand and 98-minute rush to pull it off is challenging and you miss the challenging humor.
Read MoreSociety of the Snow is what this writer calls a “thank your lucky stars” movie. It depicts the kind of true story experience that is frighteningly unfathomable to comprehend. You watch it constantly trying to determine what you would do in the characters’ places and reach an overwrought point where all you can do is, hence the nickname, “thank your lucky stars” you didn’t have to go through what you saw on-screen echoing history. The survival you watch fuels and trumps your own.
Read MoreSomewhere, originality died. Somewhere, someone in charge (disappointing if it’s James Wan with his perceived taste and clout) said “to hell with it” and “what do we have to lose.” By the time this movie ends with a global press conference of Jason Momoa aping Tony Stark with an “I am Aquaman” mic drop, the answer of what is lost is dignity. Go ahead and put a pile of “Road Closed” barricades all over the end of this road.
Read MoreNonetheless, that’s where The Boys in the Boat, the latest satiny period piece directed by George Clooney, hopes to rekindle old pride, honor, and excitement. Boosted by inspirational history and adapted from Daniel James Brown’s 2013 bestseller, Clooney’s film cannot push back the entire predominant stereotype described earlier, but it can offer a scrappy team of bourgeoisie to root for and showcase the dauntless fortitude to perform the marginalized sport itself.
Read MoreLet’s just say it now upfront. Folks are going to walk up completely unprepared for The Iron Claw. They’re going to see the old school wrestling setting and the ripped bod of Zac Efron and swoon a little. They’re going to want, as one WWE superstar of this era so hilariously expressed once, “big meaty men slappin’ meat.” That’s cute, but The Iron Claw is not No Holds Barred or Nacho Libre.
Read MoreFor better or worse, Poor Things is a movie of unsavory urges and scratched itches that pull the viewer down a pernicious drain of unconscionable behavior. There is a dark comedy buried in the muck of Poor Things that curdles to the surface in the final third as our strong female becomes the master of her own fate, body, heart, and business. Stone sells it at every turn. Still, at many points, one will wonder whether all of the absurdity will amount to something exotic or vapid.
Read MoreThis lovely approachability in a fabulous package should come as no surprise for a film directed by Paul King of two cherished Paddington films and co-written by his series partner Simon Farnaby. With little motif tingles of the old signature “Pure Imagination” melody percolating in Talbot’s score before the Chalamet’s rendition of the full song closes the film, Wonka builds a respectful and winsome bridge from the future to the past.
Read MoreAmerican Fiction adds rich depth to its main character and becomes a more abundant movie. A movie of all industry schemes might veer to the cockamamie. Likewise, a movie of all family drama would get encumbered by the shuffle of heaviness. With American Fiction, those emotions balance each other, and audiences get the best of both worlds with arguably the year’s best satire packaged within a tissue-pulling, affecting drama.
Read MoreShockingly and woefully, Joaquin Phoenix does not achieve a single one of those aforementioned personality traits of Napoleon Bonaparte to any compelling degree. You read that right– not a single one of them. There’s no sweeping speech destined for an Oscar nomination clip that wins over citizens, soldiers, or us viewers. Big political ideas pop without sparks. The fireworks and cunning strategy never make it off the battlefield, and any legendary swagger is reduced to the snivels of a lazy and insecure cuckold.
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