Uh Oh, it’s the week of Friday the 13th! Or is it “Cool, it ‘s the week of Friday the 13th!”? In this week’s “Shitbag of the Year Award” story, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein is a monstrous creep and should be destroyed. Losing his job, company, wife and possibly his Academy status are the least…
Visually, sonically, thematically, tonally, Denis Villeneuve’s sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi masterpiece is absolutely spot-on, mimicking the very particular look, sound and feel of the earlier film with eerie specificity. As with J.J. Abrams’ The Force Awakens, which felt like Star Wars: A New Hope, this absolutely feels like Blade Runner, including buying into that film’s more ponderous aspects, and certainly into…
John Denver’s Annie’s Song was used very prominently in this year’s Free Fire and Okja. His song Take Me Home Country Roads was used very prominently in Alien Covenant and Logan Lucky. Now, Kingsman: The Golden Circle uses both, very prominently. Channing Tatum was in Logan Lucky and is now in Kingsman. Co-incidence? I don’t think so. I think Matthew Vaughn, director and co-writer of Kingsman, is having a sly joke, and it’s perfectly in keeping with the tone…
Unlike last year’s fresh and visually gratifying The Shallows, this year’s shark indie takes place 47 Meters Down, and is very much the worse for it. Since our protagonists, young sisters-in-Mexico-but-now-in-trouble Kate (Claire Holt) and Lisa (Mandy Moore), are trapped in a shark cage 47 Meters Down, the atmosphere is underwater-gloomy, the sisters’ faces are obscured by their diving masks, and…
Anolther fun-filled week of information from entertainment land! In this week’s “Before a Tomb Raider, she was a…bike messenger?” story, Alicia Vikander si our new Lara Croft, Tomb Raider in the film that comes out March 16, 2018. But her back story is kinda random. This official synopsis is weirdly specific: “Lara Croft is the…
Oh look, another week of shenanigans in the world of film – and stuff. In this week’s “Legendary loss” story, the great actor Harry Dean Stanton died today at the age of 91. Stanton had iconic roles in films like Alien, Godfather II, Pretty In Pink, Escape From New York, and Repo Man. He’s basically…
Great googly-moogly! Another week of things happening has happened! Onward! In this week’s” Big numbers game” story, New Line’s IT opened to an enormous $ 13.5 million for a Thursday night. The North American preview number for IT is the third-largest for 2017, trailing only Disney’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, at $17 million,…
Darren Aronofsky’s phantasmagoric fantasia on art, fame, success, religion, politics and the cult of celebrity erupts relentlessly and furiously. It is the angriest, most dynamic film I’ve seen this year, and probably the best film hailing from the US (although it seems to have been shot in Quebec). A fable or parable rather than a…
Contrary to the brilliant trailer-cutting department at Warner Bros., It is not a scary movie. What It is, is a young-teens-on-bikes small-town-USA ‘80s-set adventure yarn, like Netflix’s Stranger Things, with which It shares much in common. Stranger Things, as an intellectual exercise, imagines a Stephen King-like story as directed by Steven Spielberg. It is based on a Stephen King novel and is directed in the style of…
Holy crap, it’s September! Labor Day weekend! The end of the summer movie season! Let’s see what shenanigans are going on this week! In this week’s “But what does it really mean?” story, Joss Whedon is getting a writer’s credit on the Justice League movie. I suppose that’s the least they could do seeing as…