Lilies of the Field reflects the early 1960s frame of its creation. Sentimental and obvious, Poitier plays a bridge between Cold War religiosity and then-bubbling Civil Rights agitation. –November 30, 2024
Tag: Pleasant – Well-Made
West Side Story
Impressive, most off all for reconstructing mid-1950s Midtown Manhattan. I’m Just not sure if Spielberg’s West Side Story is something great or completely unnecessary. –November 30, 2024
Wicked: Part I
With low expectations, you’ll be blown away by Wicked: Part I. The performers are great, and I cried in the Ozdust Ballroom, but it runs for 160 minutes with no end in sight. –November 30, 2024
Locke
Tom Hardy carries Locke, a movie about a man driving his car on the worst-best day of his life. Gimmicky, yes, but well-produced. –October 31, 2024
The Departed
Scorsese has fun with material about unexpected violence and foul language. Peak for Jack Nicholson wearing a gray “Irish” t-shirt. –October 31, 2024
Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind is obviously brilliant, but it’s hard to forgive how desirable the filmmakers make the Confederacy. –September 30, 2024
Phone Booth
Handsome Irishman angers sociopath, or Phone Booth: a gimmick movie with solid thrills. –September 30, 2024
Taxi
Americans know little about Iran. Taxi is a corrective to show Iranians as a varied people in a docu-fiction study of state control, family, art, and car service. –September 30, 2024
The Beguiled
A template from the Golden Age of Porn: Clint Eastwood wakes up in a Civil War-era girls’ boarding school where every female character wants to have sex with him. –August 31, 2024
9
9 is about a ragdoll defending Earth from a machine, or The Terminator meets LOTR. –August 31, 2024
The Fault in Our Stars
You think, this will be terrible. Then you watch The Fault in Our Stars and wonder, am I too old to identify with teen cancer patients when their parents seem so lovely? –July 31, 2024
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
So much better than I anticipated, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is a fable of female coming-of-age that leans hard on a preteen dying of cancer. –July 31, 2024
Dune: Part Two
Despite an unsatisfying cliffhanger, Dune: Part Two is sensually brilliant. Totally works on a big screen with rumbling speakers. –May 31, 2024
Chicken Run
Chicken Run is better than I remember because I now understand its satire of beautiful men (as in vocal performer Mel Gibson) and WWII POW movies and TV shows. –May 31, 2024
Riders of Justice
Riders of Justice is about a Dutch soldier who rolls up a gang he thinks murdered his wife. But they didn’t. Praise for Mads Mikkelsen, here, wearing a beard. –May 31, 2024
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is familiar and long, and it defines the rather-stunning current limit of what image capture can accomplish. –May 31, 2024
Raise the Titanic
Titanic was central to the fighting the Cold War. See Raise the Titanic and find out why. –April 30, 2024
Bend It Like Beckham
Bend It Like Beckham connects immigrant assimilation with sports mythology to suggest women are people, too. –April 30, 2024
The Andromeda Strain
Procedural nerd-work as a Cold War thriller, The Andromeda Strain shows how gain of function research will lead to unintended consequences. You know, like COVID. –April 30, 2024
Over the Hedge
Take 1: Suburbia kills, especially woodland herbivores, or so goes the plot of Over the Hedge. Enjoy it for in-jokes about American consumerism, and think about whether it has a happy ending. Take 2: Over the Hedge ends with 100% dead animals before phase two construction. –October 31, 2024
The Creator
The Creator looks terrific, even though most of the story world and plot refers to other, often better movies. –March 31, 2024
Cleopatra
Cleopatra is 4-hours of hubba-hubba between Richard Burton’s Mark Antony and Elizabeth Taylor’s titular queen. –February 29, 2024
A Man Escaped
Take 1: Robert Bresson set the stage for all prison break movies in A Man Escaped, a master class in plot development under Nazi occupation. Take 2: From “The Hi-Lo Bro Show” podcast: This is the one where Richard refers to Martin Heidegger’s “The Origin of the Work of Art” and praises transgressive art, while Garrett… Continue reading A Man Escaped
Lilo & Stitch
Lilo & Stitch puts brown girls at Disney’s core with Stitch as an echo of Gollum. –February 29, 2024
Bros
Bros alternates between lots of Queer sex and nuanced monologues about identity, integrity, and love. Plus, it’s laugh-out-loud funny entertainment. –January 31, 2024
Walk the Line
In Walk the Line Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon cosplay Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. The great first hour leads to biopic milestones that gradually feel unsatisfying. –January 31, 2024
The Purge
The Purge works because it doesn’t embroider dystopia. At 85 minutes, it’s not too much, not too little, but just right. –December 31, 2023
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
I didn’t like Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit when I first saw it. On second viewing, I enjoyed the voices of Peter Sallis, Ralph Fiennes, and Helena Bonham Carter. –December 31, 2023
Yellow Rose
Yellow Rose is about an undocumented Filipina teen with dreams of singing country music. Unexpectedly touching. –December 31, 2023
Polite Society
In Polite Society, two Pakistani-British sisters foil an incestuous plot about finding perfect wombs. Fast-moving. Entertaining. Terrific. –December 31, 2023
Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas)
I forgot just how good Joyeux Noel is, and this second viewing kept me thinking for days. –November 30, 2023
A Silent Voice
There is no reason to become emotionally invested in animated movies. They’re clearly artificial. But you can invest in them, and you might want to, and I did with A Silent Voice. –November 30, 2023
You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah
No Sandler fan am I, but You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah minimizes his presence to center on girls coming of age, and it’s a delight to watch alongside a girl coming of age. –November 30, 2023
Chronicle
Chronicle is too long, but it does cast a needed pall over superhero stories that has since been mastered by The Boys. –November 30, 2023
The Mule
The Mule: Eastwood gets away with it. Again. –November 30, 2023
Champions
It’s Bad News Bears for Gen A: Champions stars Woody Harrelson as a difficult man who is loyal to the special needs athletes he forms into a team. –October 31, 2023
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour presents breathtaking photography of the most dominant voice in pop music today. Must have been a real drag for front row concertgoers. –October 31, 2023
Black Dynamite
1970s Blaxploitation is mostly awful, save for the songs, threads, and sex. Black Dynamite amplifies what’s awful to let us in on the joke of great satire. –October 31, 2023
Ida
Ida is an orphaned Polish woman preparing to enter the convent in 1962. Then she discovers she is the child of slaughtered Jewish Holocaust victims. It’s in black and white and short, and it’s painful and terrific. –October 31, 2023
Hi, Mom
Hi, Mom is among the most commercially successful movies ever made by a woman. It’s also an emotionally satisfying story centered on a mother/daughter time loop narrative that earned more than $800 million at the box office in China. During COVID. With no US release. –September 30, 2023
A Man Called Otto
Sentimental and manipulative in all the right ways, A Man Called Otto is another evidentiary submission in the case for why Tom Hanks can do no wrong. –September 30, 2023
Shall We Dance?
In Shall We Dance? J Lo instructs Richard Gere how to make love to Susan Sarandon, but it works because Stanley Tucci and Bobby Cannavale also take the floor. –August 31, 2023
Barbie
Having defined 2023, Barbie is great entertainment, minor art, and terrific bu$ine$$. –August 31, 2023
CODA
Heartwarming and sensitive, CODA is the kind of movie that once drew adults to theaters. Now it lures us to Apple TV as campaign fodder for an Oscar, which it won. –August 31, 2023
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Spider-Man: No Way Home puts Holland, Garfield, and Maguire—our three Spider-Men—on-screen together, but it never escapes being a repetitive, multi-verse gimmick, especially when Peter-One Thanos-snaps himself out of memory. –August 31, 2023
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Little Tommy Cruise works so hard that I hate being a troll who complains about how Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is too long and overstuffed. But the stunts are magnificent, and Esai Morales steals every one of his scenes. –July, 2023
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is unexpectedly gruesome. My eyes got misty (for Rocket). I wondered when it would end (150-minute run time!). Yet the found families theme really is the heart of the MCU. –June, 2023
Extraction 2
I loved Extraction, but I don’t love Extraction 2. Why? We see stunts presented with impossibly well-kitted-out bad guys that Chris Hemsworth mows down for reasons I forgot. –June, 2023
Upgrade
Many movies wrestle with AI. Upgrade adds to the mix a vengeful, luddite mechanic inside a dystopian future that moves away from Blade Runner and toward Apple’s genius bar, if Elon Musk managed daily operation. –May 31, 2023
The Sea Wolf
The Sea Wolf was born on Jack London’s desk, and Michael Curtiz made it sing in the movie adaptation about despotism in the world of sea pirates starring Edward G. Robinson. Ida Lupino is the lone woman, and it’s hard to ignore how this fact informs much pornography. –May 31, 2023
The Iron Giant
As a fable about friendship, The Iron Giant is sentimental entertainment. As a story of militarism in the face of the “Other”, it’s a thoughtful consideration of tolerance. –May 31, 2023
The Caine Mutiny
Herman Wouk wrote the best-selling novel, and Bogart stoked the movie adaptation. The Caine Mutinydramatizes military incompetence while speaking truth to power with Jose Ferrar stealing scenes as Lee Marvin and Claude Akins offer themselves in early bit parts. –May 31, 2023
My Octopus Teacher
My Octopus Teacher is a beautiful-looking nature documentary about a man who falls in love with a mollusc on the way to accepting his place in the natural world. –May 31, 2023
Child’s Play
Billy Bibbit turns on the charm as “Chucky”, a Good Guy Doll, in Child’s Play, a master class in POV camera, animatronics, and nonsense that’s great fun for everyone. –April 30, 2023
The Hunger Games: The Mockingjay – Part 2
The Hunger Games: The Mockingjay – Part 2 ends with Katniss making an impossible shot while savvy politicians exploit her rebellion to form a new central authority. Election 2024? –March 31, 2023
Cloverfield
MTV’s The Real World + Godzilla = Cloverfield. The gimmick is found footage, and it works because agreeable actors perform confusion and fear. –February 28, 2023
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is the one where many blood sport survivors grind an axe. –February 28, 2023
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1
The Hunger Games: The Mockingjay – Part 1 is the one where we learn that Katniss Everdeen’s rebellion serves Julianne Moore’s awesome gray dye job. –February 28, 2023
Strange World
Strange World is a DEI animated fantasy that feels like the lesser parts of Moana and Fantastic Voyage. –February 28, 2023
Marty
“You don’t like her. My mother don’t like her. She’s a dog. And I’m a fat, ugly man. Well, all I know is I had a good time last night. I’m gonna have a good time tonight. If we have enough good times together, I’m gonna get down on my knees. I’m gonna beg that… Continue reading Marty
Maid in Manhattan
J Lo is a Maid in Manhattan when Lord Voldemort brings his dogs to town. They fall in love, expectedly, and while it’s not all that good, I enjoyed myself thoroughly. –January 31, 2023
How Green Was My Valley
“Everything I ever learnt as a small boy came from my father, and I never found anything he ever told me to be wrong or worthless. The simple lessons he taught me are as sharp and clear in my mind as if I had heard them only yesterday.” Nominated for the 1941 Academy Award for… Continue reading How Green Was My Valley
Speed
In the church of Keanu Reeves, Speed is the Holy Spirt. It’s also nonsense that nonetheless moves right along the way any summer action flick must. –November 30, 2022
The Woman King
Take 1: Viola Davis retcons the Atlantic slave trade to promote women warriors in the Kingdom of Dahomey. Sometimes approaching a 300 parody, The Woman King works because it has a great cast with war sequences that privilege smarts and dexterity over brawn. Take 2: The Woman King enthralls any audience sensitive to the power of black and brown women.… Continue reading The Woman King
House of Flying Daggers
As a narrative, House of Flying Daggers is nonsense. As ballet, though, using arrows, swords, and flying daggers, it choreographs athletic excellence and offers pure bliss. –October 31, 2022
Easter Sunday
Jo Koy does mostly clean humor in Easter Sunday, the kind of light-hearted fare that used to unite Americans with happy endings, here spun through a Filipino family. Pass the balut! –October 31, 2022
Super Size Me
“A Pizza Hut! A Pizza Hut! Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut!” –September 30, 2022
Tokyo Godfathers
Satoshi Kon was a weirdo (RIP). Need proof? See Tokyo Godfathers, a Christmas story about three homeless people saving a newborn girl who is thrown out with the trash. Pa Rum Pa Pum Pum! –September 30, 2022
Mutiny on the Bounty
“Discipline’s the thing. A seaman’s a seaman, a captain’s a captain. And a midshipman is the lowest form of animal life in the British navy.” Twelve films were nominated for the Outstanding Production Academy Award of 1935. Aside from the eventual winner, Frank Lloyd’s Mutiny on the Bounty, which was produced by MGM, five other titles… Continue reading Mutiny on the Bounty
Clueless
Ant-Man loves his Clueless stepsister, which should make you say “ewwww” but you won’t. –August 31, 2022
Marry Me
J Lo is an easy target for jokes. In Marry Me she leans into the silly fact of being herself and offers a terrific middle-ager-seeking-romance performance. –August 31, 2022
The Perfect Date
In The Perfect Date, Noah Centineo plays another hot high schooler opposite Ally from Austin & Ally. She’s a goody-two-shoes playing beyond her virtue circle, and they fall in love! –August 31, 2022
I, Robot
I, Robot presents a risible Christian metaphor, although it’s really The Matrix warmed over on the way to I Am Legend. –August 31, 2022
Gandhi
His weapon was his humanity. –June 30, 2022
The Split
How to make The Split: Jim Brown + Diahann Carroll = bug-eyed Ernest Borgnine hulking out with sharpshooter Donald Sutherland, safe cracker Warren Oates, and limo driver Jack Klugman. And Gene Hackman is a bad copy before he was Popeye. –July 31, 2022
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom should be called “Blonde Lady in the Thuggee Short Round Solo of Tunes.” –July 31, 2022
The Flight of the Phoenix
Jimmy Stewart spent WWII in the Army Air Force and returned home with a flinty eye. The Flight of the Phoenix showcases his maturity as he helps misfit oil workers survive a plane crash in North Africa. It’s a good tale behind the velvet ropes of nostalgia. –July 31, 2022
Independence Day
Will Smith punches an alien and saves the world, which begs the question: is Independence Day a rehearsal for winning the Best Actor Oscar? –June 30, 2022
The Devil Wears Prada
Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt play ugly for Meryl Streep who’s mean to Stanley Tucci. The Devil Wears Prada teaches you not to feel superior to fashion when U2 sings “City of Blinding Lights”. –June 30, 2022
The Tale of Princess Kaguya
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is a charmer about how a bamboo shoot begets a girl because she’s the daughter the moon, which makes more sense than you think. –May 31, 2022
Wolfwalkers
Take 1: Wolfwalkers is the story of a girl who saves her daddy and a pack of wolves and the people-wolves that lord over them. But it’s also the story of religious fidelity, colonization, chosen families, and gynophilic imagery. Take 2: Wolfwalkers is a triumph of 2-D animation meeting the emotional needs of tween children. –May 31,… Continue reading Wolfwalkers
Jurassic World
Jurassic World shouldn’t be as enjoyable as it is when it’s built around re-organizing Jurassic Park, itself a Jaws meets Westworld mashup, but I do like the ride with Chris Pratt’s Indy knock-off. –April 30, 2022
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is the story of bigger dinosaurs terrorizing the people that train smaller dinosaurs, but it’s also the story of how rich people can’t accept lifestyle limitations, as in Elon Musk’s plans for a Mars colony, circa 2050. –April 30, 2022
Eddie the Eagle
I remember when the Eddie the Eagle landed his pitiful ski jumps in the Calgary Olympics. Though he finished dead last, he converted me into a fan. The same holds for Eddie the Eagle that puts Hugh Jackman in the lineup as Eddie’s coach. –April 30, 2022
Free Guy
Free Guy shouldn’t be any good (think warmed over The LEGO Movie). Then on-the-nose musings about the nature of selfhood “land” with stunning visual effects to render the reel world through a real world of video game obstacles. –March 31, 2022
Minari
Take 1: Garrett Chaffin-Quiray and Ed Rosa lament overdone spectacle in movies versus the too-rare peculiarity of wonderfully humane stories. Take 2: Minari is a magical, small-scale story of resilience, and it makes me cry. –February 29, 2024
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Twilight Saga: New Moon passes time, and it’s way better than I expected it to be, given how little I think of its predecessor, Twilight. –February 28, 2022
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is the one where a girl sacrifices a loving future with human friends and family because she’s horny for fangs. –February 28, 2022
The Eight Hundred
Combine Michael Bay’s visual flare, Mel Gibson’s sadomasochism, the plot of 300, and a dash of national mythology, but increase the body count, and you’ve got the based-on-a-true-story, COVID-era, Chinese war movie-turned-blockbuster The Eight Hundred. –February 28, 2022
Tomorrowland
Tomorrowland is so much better than you anticipate. When it’s over you may wonder if a future where children bend time to invent tools to save our dying world is a happy ending. –January 31, 2022
Queen of Katwe
A poor Ugandan girl learns how to play chess and gets an education about the world. Queen of Katwe works the built-in melodrama and succeeds wildly. –September 30, 2021
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies finds some LOTR mojo in several lengthy battle scenes modeled on Spartacus and Zulu. Wait for the war pig and celebrate Bilbo’s homecoming. –December 31, 2021
Seabiscuit
Classical Style narratives are old fashioned, but Seabiscuit offers a good one about a Depression-era rich man, a poor man, a broken man, and a racehorse. –November 30, 2021
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Not everyone loves Middle Earth. For those who do, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the Bilbo Baggins backstory we didn’t know we wanted or needed, particularly when we meet the Goblin King and Gollum. –November 30, 2021
Bless the Beasts and Children
Garrett Chaffin-Quiray and Ed Rosa agree that awkward boys become awkward men. –November 30, 2021
Swiss Family Robinson
I remember climbing the Disneyland treehouse, based on Swiss Family Robinson, which serves up the kindest possible spin about the value of patriarchal White Supremacist adventure. –October 31, 2021
The LEGO Movie
From “The Hi-Lo Bro Show” podcast: “This is the one where Richard refers to Gnosticism, Elliot, birth marks, and all things awesome, and Garrett plays on the floor with a children’s toy.” –October 31, 2021
Cruella
Cruella mostly subtracts spotted dogs from a story set in punky 1970s London. The Emmas, both Stone and Thompson, do their work well, but you may wonder if this story needs telling. –September 30, 2021
When Marnie Was There
A ghost in a Japanese fishing village helps a schoolgirl better understand her mom. When Marnie Was There isn’t life altering, but it is emotionally realistic, so long as the realism you enjoy accepts paranormal creatures that heal broken families. –September 30, 2021
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Put 007 into a Dan Brown thriller, and you get National Treasure: Book of Secrets, in which Nicolas Cage re-solves Lincoln’s assassination one the way to a Native American city of gold. –September 30, 2021
The Secret of Kells
Take 1: Among literati, words turn language into magic. In The Secret of Kells a boy transcribes a book that holds good and evil in balance, and the magic of his world comes from hand drawn animation with scene transitions like stained-glass fragments. Take 2: The Secret of Kells is a parable of literacy in a time of… Continue reading The Secret of Kells
Nomadland
Take 1: Garrett Chaffin-Quiray and Ed Rosa interpret the 2020 Academy Award winner. Take 2: Frances McDormand craps into a plastic bucket in Nomadland. She also pees in a field and skinny dips in a mountain river. But you’ll probably remember her best for playing against the prickly type she’s mastered over the last 20 years.… Continue reading Nomadland
Ready Player One
Take 1: I wanted to like it, but I didn’t. I decided halfway through I would hate it, but I couldn’t. Finally, I was impressed with what Ready Player One looks like and how it sounds. Yet I can’t remember much about it, save the stack of trailers where the hero lives above a stripper. Take 2:… Continue reading Ready Player One
National Treasure
National Treasure centers on a government-run library-turned-impregnable vault because the Founding Fathers loved escape rooms. –August 31, 2021
Love Story
Sorry optional. –August 31, 2021
Enchanted
Amy Adams is a live action princess in Enchanted, a wonderfully knowing critique about all Disney Princess stories, produced by Disney, to entice viewers with a self-conscious story about Disney Princess stories, for which Adams is the perfect recruitment tool. –July 31, 2021
Horror of Dracula
Take 1: Hammer Films exploits sex, monsters, and violence with a pinch of fine acting. See Horror of Dracula for Christopher Lee’s titular villain and enjoy Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing. Take 2: From “The Hi-Lo Bro Show” podcast: “This is the one where Richard pines for a Sears catalog and Garrett discovers phallic imagery.” –July 31, 2021
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie makes you wish your dopey friends were funnier. –July 31, 2021
A Mighty Wind
Take 1: Though not about flatulence, A Mighty Wind does feature Christopher Guest’s band of rascals doing a mockumentary lovingly devoted to American folk music. Enjoy The New Main Street Singers and peak for “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow.” Take 2: Mockumentary is a form of love. A Mighty Wind is an untrue story about how folk… Continue reading A Mighty Wind
Saving Mr. Banks
Acting above middling material in Saving Mr. Banks, Tom Hanks is agreeable as Walt Disney wooing the writer of Mary Poppins, PL Travers (Emma Thompson), who has a discontented Daddy backstory we don’t really need to see. –June 30, 2021
Hugo
Hugo is the backstory of Georges Méliès, cinematic pioneer, told form the point-of-view of the titular boy as stand-in for director Martin Scorsese who spreads around the love of early silent movies. Pure nostalgic in the best possible way. –June 30, 2021
Song of the Sea
Song of the Sea is about a boy with a little sister who is a supernatural creature. They live in Ireland where magic is every day, and the sentiment affirms love and wonder. –June 30, 2021
Porco Rosso
A human pilot survives World War I and becomes a literal pig-man bounty hunter, aka Porco Rosso. Eventually, he redeems his honor, and nothing you’ve just read will prepare you for how good it is. –May 31, 2021
Coraline
Stop motion animation can’t cover the joins between shots, and that’s how Coraline builds an abandonment nightmare every child remembers from wondering whether a loving parent will remember to feed them. –May 31, 2021
Grand Hotel
“And what do you do in the Grand Hotel? Eat. Sleep. Loaf around. Flirt a little, dance a little. A hundred doors leading to one hall. No one knows anything about the person next to them. And when you leave, someone occupies your room, lies in your bed.” “People come. People go. Nothing ever happens,”… Continue reading Grand Hotel
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
In the rare instance of a sequel being better than the original, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil surrounds Angelina Jolie with a UN cross-section of winged, horned Fey people to expunge evil from humankind so Michelle Pfeiffer won’t steal too many scenes. –April 30, 2021
News of the World
Tom Hanks reads newspapers out loud for pennies in Texas while protecting a twice orphaned girl as penance for his service in the Confederate army. News of the World has moments of brilliance, though it’s uneven. Watch all the way through the final scene. –April 30, 2021
Raya and the Last Dragon
Take 1: Progressively Christian, Raya and the Last Dragon gave me the feels when its young brown-skinned woman/prophet survives her good father’s sacrifice, saves a female dragon, competes with a non-binary friend, and consolidates a troubled kingdom by helping everyone reach heaven. Take 2: Raya and the Last Dragon is better the second time through because the dragon’s… Continue reading Raya and the Last Dragon
Wonder Woman
Take 1: Wonder Woman is the serialized fantasy of a polyamorous psychologist; it’s also a nod to the Jewish-American influence over global pop culture because Israeli actress Gal Gadot plays Diana Prince with blue-eyed Chris Pine as her gentile lover, Steve. And it’s good entertainment. Take 2: A memory says Wonder Woman is good, which is one reason… Continue reading Wonder Woman
The Croods: A New Age
Sometimes you snort at entertainment because you think you’re superior. Other times you snort because you’re pleased. The Croods: A New Age is the second kind of snort where animated people make fun of HOAs, coastal elites, and old people with equal verve. –March 31, 2021
Blade Runner 2049
Take 1: Blade Runner 2049: Start it to see Drax fight Sebastian; finish it to see Indy become a Dad. This time he’s really a replicant. Take 2: From “The Hi-Lo Bro Show” podcast: “This is the one where replicants inspire Richard to go full Milton while Garrett obsesses over AI coupling.” –January 31, 2021
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Take 1: Noisy pirates accept Sylvester Stallone’s leadership while Groot grows, Rocket rages, Gamora glams, Drax destroys, Mantis matures, Nebula needles, and Yondu Yondus. And if that makes sense, “Taser face!” Take 2: Handsome Kurt Russell sired Chris Pratt in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2., which plays like Interplanet Janet attending a gender-reversal party at… Continue reading Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
It’s the best of the Harrys: Prisoner of Azkaban. –January 31, 2021
The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin features a single-take chase through a busy village that takes up minutes of screen time. It’s perfect Spielberg. –January 31, 2021
Captain Marvel
Take 1: A billion-dollar movie ain’t what it used to be (heard of Toy Story 3?). In the midst of its kind of silly, Captain Marvel de-ages Samuel L. Jackson. For a moment I smiled, but then I remembered I could re-watch Jungle Fever to see both a good movie and a younger SLJ. Take 2: Captain Marvel seems able to… Continue reading Captain Marvel
Midway
Roland Emmerich has jingoism down pat. See Midway for CGI dogfights and a solid attempt to humanize the Japanese adversary. Or, simply imagine a better Pearl Harbor. –December 31, 2020
Palm Springs
Take 1: Andy Samberg samples everything in Palm Springs, including one of the groomsmen, and it’s fantastic. Take 2: Palm Springs is an experimental narrative featuring puerile humor, squirm-worthy pratfalls, alcoholism, non-linear time loops, and giant dinosaurs. Really. And it’s funny and sentimental, and good fun, too. –March 31, 2022
Howl’s Moving Castle
Another brilliantly animated nonsense world of steampunk crazy, Howl’s Moving Castle is about a girl with an RV that must stop a civil war. Seriously. –November 30, 2020
Castle in the Sky
Castle in the Sky is about a magic girl and ordinary boy that bring balance to the world with lots of flying to take on pirates and overcome a big-bosomed villainess. –November 30, 2020
Spirited Away
I’ve seen it three times and I still don’t understand why so many people think Spirited Away is anything more than beautiful nonsense. –October 31, 2020
The LEGO Movie
Take 1: The LEGO Movie hates women. Take 2: From “The Hi-Lo Bro Show” podcast: “This is the one where Richard pines for a Sears catalog and Garrett discovers phallic imagery.” –October 31, 2020
Kiki’s Delivery Service
FedEx with a broom: Kiki’s Delivery Service. –October 31, 2020
The Color Purple
I cried when I was supposed to, laughed when I was meant to, and generally enjoyed myself in The Color Purple. That is, right up until the final image of two abuse-surviving adult sisters crossed by the silhouette of one of their main male abusers. –September 30, 2020
RBG
Being supported by women all my life, the documentary of RBG’s life RBG is like a salve for all the meanness I am aware of in the world. I cried a lot. You might, too. –August 31, 2020
Blinded by the Light
Things I learned from Blinded by the Light: Springsteen matters; White supremacists are a drag; making high school friends with weirdos is best; honoring your parents is valuable, but only inside your own ambitions. –August 31, 2020
The Stepfather
Take 1: Terry O’Quinn once had hair, and it made him a killer in The Stepfather, which is the story of a man who tries out new families before he murders them when laundry day becomes too intense. Take 2: From “The Hi-Lo Bro Show” podcast: “This is the one where John Locke enjoys Bach and… Continue reading The Stepfather
Booksmart
Superbad is rad and Booksmart is tart. Ladies bring the juice, while the fellas stand apart. –July 31, 2020
The King
Timothée Chalamet is a stringy, pretty young man, and his Henry V, in The King, is a troubled, vengeful monarch. Ignore historical accuracy. Enjoy the armor. –June 30, 2020
The Hunt
Take 1: The Hunt is enjoyable art-trash in the mold of The Most Dangerous Game. I laughed out loud. You should, too. Take 2: The Hunt satirizes woke elites unable to understand a vet with PTSD. Pop the champagne! –October 31, 2024
Extraction
Thor shears his golden locks to flex his inner John Wick in Extraction that is more accurately called “Call of Duty: White Savior Murder Complex.” But I enjoyed myself. Alone. Feeling guilty. –May 31, 2020
Men in Black II
Much worse than falsely remembering having seen it in 2002, Men in Black II is a formulaic tent-pole failing to get away with it. –May 31, 2020
The Mask of Zorro
The Mark of Zorro defies simple judgment. Simply enjoy its many practical stunts, mild revisionism, and the parade of beauty, in which the f(x) = Antonio Banderas + Catherine Zeta-Jones raised to the power of Anthony Hopkins. –May 31, 2020
The Foreigner
The Foreigner is perfectly calibrated, Neeson-esque, old guy vengeance with Jackie Chan picking apart an IRA splinter cell to avenge his daughter. All stunts, all the time. –April 30, 2020
The Biggest Little Farm
The Biggest Little Farm is a noble experiment in transforming White guilt into sustainable living. It’s a model few can emulate, but it’s worth remembering when buying apples out of season. –April 30, 2020
A Dog’s Journey
Dennis Quaid can act. I know this because he loves his dog Bailey, and she/he/they live multiple lifetimes to finally bring him to heaven in A Dog’s Journey. I should know better, but I cried anyway. –April 30, 2020
A Dog’s Purpose
A Dog’s Purpose is to see through the obvious tropes of too many animal movies and still enjoy a well-made animal movie. Bow-wow. –April 30, 2020
Dunkirk
We have too many movies about WWII. Still, Dunkirk combines three overlapping storylines that occur in one week, one day, and one hour. It’s not amazing until it is. Watch for production design. Listen to Hans Zimmer. Enjoy cameos. –March 31, 2020
On the Basis of Sex
RBG is a 3-D person with a family. That’s important, but her professional reputation rests on winning a case concerning a man who endured sex discrimination that led her to elevation as the second female justice of the US Supreme Court. On the Basis of Sex. –March 31, 2020
Green Book
COMING SOON –March 31, 2020
The Great Debaters
Black folks telling stories about Black folks on Christmas? Try Denzel Washington’s The Great Debaters, released with Oprah money on 12/25/2007. It’s about an all-Black debate team defeating Harvard in Jim Crow 1935 because, “an unjust law is no law at all.” –February 29, 2020
Kung Fu Panda 2
You can watch it over and over, and Kung Fu Panda 2 remains a great movie. –February 29, 2020
78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene
“78 Shots & 52 Cuts that Changed Cinema Forever” Film studies is reducible to several main approaches: aesthetic-technical, theoretical-ideological, self-reflective, socio-cultural, and/or obscurantist-celebratory.[1] In all five approaches, the point is expressing pleasure, for if a person doesn’t feel drawn to thinking about movies, there is no reason for any film studies project. But if a person… Continue reading 78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene
Eighth Grade and Mid90s
“Congratulations, superlative winners!” “A lot of the time we feel that our lives are the worst, but I think that if you looked in anybody else’s closet, you wouldn’t trade your shit for their shit. So let’s go.” Take 1: Any honest adult remembers middle school as an awkward phase organized around avoiding embarrassment. With… Continue reading Eighth Grade and Mid90s
Avengers: Infinity War
Take 1: Much is made over the fate of MCU heroes and heroines, but here’s the thing: Avengers: Infinity War is about a muscle-bound, purple-skinned, power priest saving the universe by making hard choices no one else will. All praise Thanos. Take 2: Avengers: Infinity War: I like it better the second time through because it solves… Continue reading Avengers: Infinity War
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Anthology entertainment is risky. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs has Tom Waits. Brilliant. But it also has a stagecoach packed with malcontents, or the Coens spend goodwill unwisely. –December 31, 2019
Surviving Home
Surviving (adjective): remaining alive, especially after the death of another or others Home (noun): 1- the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family; 2- an institution for people needing professional care; 3- the goal or end point; 4- the place where a player is free from attack; 5- a game on… Continue reading Surviving Home
Conan the Barbarian
“All that matters is that two stood against many.” –October 31, 2019
Quest for Fire
“Fire was a symbol of power and a means of survival. The tribe who possessed fire, possessed life.” In the early 1980s there was an uptick in films focused on pre-historic humans. The sources of this fascination were several, but Stanley Kubrick’s 2,001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is surely part of the conversation since it contains “The… Continue reading Quest for Fire
I Am Not Your Negro
When Samuel L. Jackson stops chewing scenery and simply narrates the words of James Baldwin, the result is a kind of magic. I Am Not Your Negro is a showcase for documentary editing and sound mixing, and also of Black American creative brilliance. –October 31, 2019
Captain America: Civil War
Captain American: Civil War has, at its center, one key question: is Chris Evans more handsome than RDJ? And, if so, can his character’s worldview of naïve patriotism really compete with Iron Man’s neocon pragmatism? –October 31, 2019
Black Panther
Take 1: All those shades of brown-skinned people in speaking parts that call for a range of emotion make Black Panther a triumph of imagery. But it’s less than the sum of its praiseworthy parts. Take 2: Black Panther is not a documentary about large cats. But it is about a wealthy Black African nation hiding from colonizing,… Continue reading Black Panther
A Better Life
Chris Weitz atoned for directing New Moon by making A Better Life, and I forgive him. Life is a brilliant, non-showy story of how an undocumented single father tries to care for his son under threat of deportation. Keep the tissues handy. –October 31, 2019
Yentl
“Why is it people who want the truth never believe it when they hear it?” –September 30, 2019
Invictus
I’m an Eastwood completist, but I couldn’t watch Invictus and keep from wondering, “What would Will Munny do if someone hurt Ned Logan?” Answer: play rugby with Matt Damon. Question: what in the hell is rugby? –September 30, 2019
Chef
Jon Favreau has grown stout in middle age while getting wealthy in the MCU. Chef shows him making food and food porn, while enlisting celebrity buddies to help his character become a proper father, husband, and entrepreneur. It’s good. –August 31, 2019
Hercules
The Rock’s got it. Hercules is about a team of warriors that become a singular identity, Hercules, through lots of adventures. Now pick up a copy of d’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths. –July 31, 2019
Toy Story 4
It’s really unbelievable that Buzz and Woody, and the gang, have more story within them. But they do, courtesy of screenwriters Stephany Folsom and Andrew Stanton. See Toy Story 4. –July 31, 2019
Devil’s Advocate
Pacino does his bug-eyed “Hoo-ah!” best in Devil’s Advocate while Keanu Reeves wears skinny jeans to avoid humping his sister. Why? Lawyers are the vanguard of Beelzebub’s plot to start Armageddon. It’s much more satisfying than you might imagine. –July 31, 2019
Girls Trip
When Tiffany Haddish sucks off a grapefruit, it’s wet yourself funny. The rest of Girls Trip holds its own. –June 30, 2019
Vice
Richard Cheney is an overweight heart patient with an alcohol problem and a true-believer wife. Vice makes fun of us because we elected 43 so this Dick could run the country. –June 30, 2019
Monsoon Wedding
“These are my children, and I will protect them from myself even if I have to.” Mira Nair is a terrific filmmaker. Her work straddles documentary and fiction storytelling, and she’s a true international citizen with experience living and working in multiple countries that have helped her establish a truly open and curious point-of-view. Her… Continue reading Monsoon Wedding
Love, Simon
Take 1: The parents in Love, Simon confront their heteronormative bias and remain devoted to their boy. Not every parent does, so I am happy to see on-screen surrogates behave as I hope I will behave when/if I find myself in similar circumstances. Take 2: It’s hard to be a suburban, White, technology savvy, (closeted) gay, male… Continue reading Love, Simon
Tarzan
Phil Collins did the soundtrack to Disney’s Tarzan, which has really kinetic animation, and Phil won an Oscar for “You’ll Be in My Heart.” Meaning: “Sussudio” gets the girl when he finally visits Uganda. –May 31, 2019
Crazy Rich Asians
Everyone is beautiful because Singapore is so damn beautiful. Crazy Rich Asians is feast of senses with no relationship, whatsoever, to whatever you’re doing today. And that’s why it works as a romantic fable. –May 31, 2019
Gosford Park
“What gift do you think a good servant has that separates them from the others? It’s the gift of anticipation.” It’s hard to warm up to Robert Altman’s movies, but it’s easy to be terribly impressed. Long-known for building texture—the consequence of using large casts, building scenes with overlapping dialogue, moving his camera to re-frame… Continue reading Gosford Park
The Others
“Sometimes the world of the living gets mixed up with the world of the dead.” A quality horror movie makes you feel bad-good. The mounting dread threatening on-screen characters increases our anticipation of whatever frights may yet be in store for us, and this worry lets us get hit in the feels. Conventional wisdom also… Continue reading The Others
The Highwaymen
Woody Harrelson and Kevin Costner have matured in the decades of movies, but not so much you can’t watch them hunt Bonnie and Clyde. The Highwaymen is a mash up of Road to Perdition with a dash of Open Range and Grumpy Old Men. SPOILER: B&C die in the end. –March 31, 2019
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Children are supposed to outlive their parents, but some kids get sick and die. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is about a weirdo-teen friendship. Start it for the warm treatment of terminal disease among high schoolers. Remember it for the parody titles of famous movies. –April 30, 2019
Training Day
“You gotta control your smiles and cries, because that’s all you have and nobody can take that away from you.” Antoine Fuqua’s Training Day (2001) is Denzel Washington’s Best Actor Oscar audition tape, but it’s really the story of a White boy who can’t stray from championing corny old-fashioned virtues like honesty and justice. Jake Hoyt (Ethan… Continue reading Training Day
Triple Frontier
Put a bunch of hot dudes together with guns, military backstories, and money trouble, and unleash them in Narcosterritory, and what do you get? The loss of 2+ hours. Triple Frontier. –March 31, 2019
Spider-Man
Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man is as a May/December romance featuring Willem Dafoe and Tobey Maguire with a splash of longing from James Franco. –February 28, 2019
Spider-Man 2
Maybe it’s Alfred Molina’s uneven grin, or Kirsten Dunst’s sleepy eyes. Probably, it has something to do with Tobey Maguire’s “What, me worry?” vibe, but Spider-Man 2 is the best of the first trilogy of Spideys. –February 28, 2019
Ralph Breaks the Internet
When your child sees Ralph Breaks the Internet and feels frightened of Ralph’s computer virus-multiplied self in the finale, you wonder if Disney has struck a new line of tragic possibility or merely found the best way to copy/paste animation code and fill up a screen. –January 31, 2019
Iron Man 2
Iron Man 2 isn’t a movie so much as a series of auditions written for RDJ and Mickey Rourke, as if they were still, in 2010, seeking the affection of casting agents from the early 1980s. And they take us to Flushing Meadows, Queens for a robot rumble. –January 31, 2019
Lean on Me
Lean on Me is a song by Bill Withers. It’s also a biopic starring Morgan Freeman. Both are good, but it’s really fun to watch Benson tell Freeman, “Shut up.” –December 31, 2018
Wolf Warrior 2
Chinese action movies may lack Hollywood budgets, but they do not lack video game-level violent excess and irony-proof patriotism. Wolf Warrior 2 is Jing Wu’s turn as Asian Tom Cruise, saving Africans in a fugue of gleeful action. It’s a sequel and the good guys win. –December 31, 2018
The Avengers
The Hulk is unstoppable. Why don’t The Avengers kick him in the junk and send him after the bad guys that attack Manhattan through a space portal that resembles an intergalactic anus? –December 31, 2018
Drumline
Football fields are for marching bands. Sub musical instruments for shoulder pads and racially-conscious collegiate striving for muscle-head violence, and you get Nick Cannon in Drumline. You’re welcome. –December 31, 2018
Riding Giants
Ocean waves are beautiful but mean. People who ride them are crazy. People who make movies about crazy athletes riding beautiful, mean waves are magicians. See Riding Giants. –December 31, 2018
Justice League
Organizing Justice League like a MCU one-off is smart. Backstories are brief, and everyone looks good. I rather enjoyed myself, quite unexpectedly. –December 31, 2018
Love Actually
When watching Love Actually with three generations of women, aged 7 through 70, you squirm when Bilbo Baggins works as a porno stand-in on the way to Emma Thompson getting her heart broken by Professor Snape. –December 31, 2018
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
“Cults, they prey on people, suggesting that, you know, you should be able to think for yourself and then tell you exactly how you have to think, or get out. And if you get out, there will be consequences.” It’s easy to throw stones at Scientology. The group is variously called a cult or thriving… Continue reading Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi
Yub nub, eee chop yub nub / Ah toe mee toe pee chee keene / G’noop dock fling oh ah. –November 30, 2018
Lars and the Real Girl
Before Ryan Gosling was Eva Mendes’s Baby Daddy, he was a child actor turned adult performer alternating saccharine roles with real meat and potatoes. Lars and the Real Girl is where weird becomes beautiful. –November 30, 2018
Last Flag Flying
Steve Carell, Laurence Fishburne, and Bryan Cranston walk into a bar. Repeatedly. And they buy cell phones to help Dan from Reel life bury his KIA son. It’s slow and uneven, but Last Flag Flying has a few really fine moments of man-love and sadness. –November 30, 2018
Inequality for All
“We make the rules of the economy – and we have the power to change those rules.” Possession of a steady income leads to asset accumulation that can, over time, lead to wealth and make a person immune to the tides of financial markets or personal catastrophe. Jacob Kornbluth’s lecture-documentary Inequality for All (2013) focuses on former… Continue reading Inequality for All
Remember the Titans
“This is no democracy. It is a dictatorship. I am the law.” Denzel Washington can do no wrong. He’s handsome, smart, emotionally controlled, thoughtful, and he’s got a memorable gait. His screen characters are always the kind of men who are ahead of everyone else, if only others would get with the program and follow.… Continue reading Remember the Titans
The Breadwinner
“We are a land whose people are its greatest treasure.“ Nora Twomey’s 2017 animated feature The Breadwinner, based on Deborah Ellis’s 2000 novel, is the story of 12-year old Parvana, an Afghani girl living with her family in Taliban-controlled Kabul. When her father is arrested and imprisoned, Parvana’s family must figure out a way to survive.… Continue reading The Breadwinner
A Bad Mom’s Christmas
A Bad Moms Christmas features meaningful eye contact between a male stripper having his scrotum waxed by a single mom. And other funny stuff, too. –August 30, 2018
Murder on the Orient Express
Take 1: Everyone looks good in Kenneth Brannagh’s Murder on the Orient Express, but it’s a shame I can’t remember what it’s about. Lots of someones kill Johnny Depp, and I think he deserves it. Take 2: Murder on the Orient Express is defiantly well-crafted, from every prop through every article of costuming draped over a dream… Continue reading Murder on the Orient Express
Juno
A “good” decision made on behalf of others keeps open the greatest number of options. Enter Juno, in which an accidental teen pregnancy helps true love blossom on the way to a complicated, humorous adoption that remains pro-choice, through and through. –July 31, 2018
Isle of the Dogs
Isle of the Dogs is another Wes Anderson object of eccentricity, intertextual reference, and in-group dialogue among frequent collaborators that uses stop-motion animation to become both fascinating (attractive and repulsive) and hat tipping (“I finally got that joke!”). –July 31, 2018
Sicario: Day of the Soldado
A lone wolf defeating a drug cartel and the US government is ridiculous. Watching Sicario: Day of the Soldado puts some training wheels on the fantasy as Benicio del Toro chews scenery with a wicked teen actress (Isabela Merced) and Thanos playing an Earthman on Halloween. –July 31, 2018
Incredibles 2
Superheroes are metaphors, and you decide their secondary meaning. Incredibles 2 adds a dollop of stay-at-home-dad-schtick to a wallop of several empowered women and an IT expert-turned-villain to prove that good intentions do not guarantee good outcomes. –June 30, 2018
Hostiles
Imagining the Old West as a knife stabbed into North America with Europeans walking the blade’s edge into native people helps Hostiles become the carefully wrought western that it is. Christian Bale, Wes Studi, and Rosamund Pike are easy on the eyes, too. –June 30, 2018
The Post
Newspapers ain’t what they used to be, so The Post has Hanks and Streep march through a Spielberg master class on American grit to show us how print journalism brought down Nixon. –June 30, 2018
Hidden Figures
Kevin Costner is back to help brilliant Black women code for NASA in the 1960s. Based on a true story, memorable scenes of caste assumption and racism linger because of the charisma of Taraji Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe, and Mahershala Ali. –May 31, 2018
McFarland, USA
Kevin Costner’s middle career repeatedly frames him as aging White Savior. In McFarland, USA, based on a true story, he coaches immigrant boys in cross country running, and they become men of value. Formula achieved. –May 31, 2018
Dog Soldiers
Dog Soldiers was released in the United Kingdom in 2002. It gathered mixed reviews and devoted fans but failed, despite its high action content, to pick up an international theatrical distributor. Subsequently released on home video, courtesy of Artisan Entertainment, Dog Soldiers has been well received among cinephiles and writers, this author included, for whom its Grand Guignol… Continue reading Dog Soldiers
Spare Parts
Cultural capital is the body of knowledge a person must learn to navigate society. Spare Parts is the true story of high school boys in a mostly Latino school that use street smarts and hustle to succeed in a robotics competition. It’s sentimental pabulum, but it works. –April 30, 2018
Pumping Iron II: The Women
Pumping Iron II: The Women almost has its Arnold in Rachel McLish, but mostly it’s a sideshow concerning the way female strength was once an addendum to bikini contests and dance competitions before it became a building block for all sports, generally. –April 30, 2018
Rodents of Unusual Size
Take 1: Documentaries are best when they explore a subject that you didn’t know you urgently wanted to know more about. Rodents of Unusual Size is one such glimpse of the fascinating problem of nutria in North America. See it for the orange incisors. Then shop for a nutria-skin coat. Take 2: Watching Rodents of Unusual Size among newbies… Continue reading Rodents of Unusual Size
Shrek
Shrek was once eye-opening as an animation pioneer. Then it was repeated in sequels and TV specials. Now it’s one booger joke away from being a kindergarten primer. –April 30, 2018
Fences
Fences centers on a philanderer and his long-suffering wife, played by Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. Their performances build on August Wilson’s landmark play, but the action is slow because their words are greater than the images capturing them. –March 31, 2018
Arrival
Take 1: Alien monoliths appear, so a troubled linguist is asked to communicate with ET before the generals go to war. Arrivalplays like a sci-fi gloss on tolerance, but it’s really the study of premonitory knowledge; can a person with the knowledge of the future accept it? Take 2: Arrival weaves an achronological story to let Amy… Continue reading Arrival
Love & Basketball
Two perfectly matched young people love basketball and each other in Love & Basketball, which does a good job focusing on a girl’s sporting life, post Title IX, when such a life could become a profession and here, eventually, it does. –March 31, 2018
Loving
Living inside an inter-racial relationship, it’s hard to believe a romance like mine was once legally regulated. See Loving for a glimpse of the history that made this restriction a thing of the past. Thankfully. –February 28, 2018
Strange Brew
Two beer fiends find jobs at a brewery where bad things happen along plot points of “Hamlet.” Hockey references and Oktoberfest float this Canadian cult-import. Strange Brew: “It’s a beauty way to go, eh?” –February 28, 2018
13th
Ava DuVernay is a big deal. Her doc 13th is about the US Constitution and America’s carceral state. Like DuVernay, it’s really provocative, and it reveals the “natural” rule of law as something constructed, artificial, biased, and cruel. –February 28, 2018
Life, Animated
ASD folks face many challenges. Life, Animated concerns one non-verbal boy who acquires speech and meaning through watching Disney videotapes on the way to manhood where he seeks independence from the limits of neuro-atypical life. –February 28, 2018
The Greatest Showman
Hugh Jackman really can sing and dance, and he wears the hell out of a top hat and tails. The Greatest Showman is also about how carnies are people, too. NOTE: No animal was harmed in the making of this capsule review, unlike in the real Barnum’s circus. –January 31, 2018
