Movie Reviews

        Reviewing Zack Snyder’s Justice League is quite the bizarre task. How does one rate this movie? Do they rate it with knowledge of the 2017 version, which saw director Zack Snyder leave the project for personal reasons, only to be replaced by director Joss Whedon and the film end up being a complete dud? Does one rate it pretending the 2017 one doesn’t exist (even though it 100% does and Zack Snyder is…

Here are my reviews of The End of Us and Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil from the 2021 SXSW Film Festival.       THE END OF US   The 2021 SXSW Film Festival is the second film festival I have covered in 2021, following the Sundance Film Festival back in January. Between these two festivals, I have noticed that we have a new growing subgenre on our hands: the COVID comedy. These are small, micro-budget, largely improvised…

        The Courier is a Cold War thriller that looks at an ordinary man and his involvement in the Cold War. This is a true story about Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch), a charming British businessman who is brought on by MI6 and the C.I.A. to help get information from Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze), a high ranking Russian officer who is willing to give out Russian secrets in order to get out of the…

        For the better part of a decade, Anthony and Joe Russo had been living in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Starting in 2014 with Captain America: Winter Soldier, the Russo Brothers went on to also make Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, three critical and box office smashes and some of the most important movies in the MCU franchise. But with 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, the Russo Brothers made the biggest film in the…

      With 2010’s Tangled, Disney Animation Studios launched what has now been deemed as the “Disney Revival Era”, an era that has brought great modern animated films like Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, and Moana. With this new era, Disney has revitalized itself as an animation powerhouse, turning out one great movie after another while also pushing their animation style and giving us great stories. With their latest film, Raya and the Last Dragon, Disney has another hit on their…

      There is a moment in Coming 2 America, the sequel to the 1988 comedy classic, where Lavelle Junson (Jermaine Fowler), the bastard son of Prince Akeem (Eddie Murphy), is having a conversation with Mirembe (Nomzamo Mbatha), a hair stylist who works in Akeem’s palace. A bond is growing between the two and they are getting to know each other. Labella asks Mirembe what kind of movies they like. Mirembe says that American…

        Billie Eilish bursted on to the music scene in 2019 with her monster hit “Bad Guy”.  Her silky, quiet voice over a catchy techno rhythm crossed genres and generations to make the song the biggest of 2019. Since “Bad Guy”, Eilish has blown up into one of the biggest music stars in the world at the young age of nineteen, having sold millions of records and winning countless awards.  With Billie…

Here are my reviews of Prisoners of the Ghostland, First Date, and Land from the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.         PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND Though he’s an Oscar-winning actor, it feels like Nicolas Cage is more known for the amount of roles he takes and the insanity he brings to his movies.  Though one of our great actors of the 90’s and early 2000’s, Cage has spent the last decade starring in movies that allow him…

Along with all the feature films I watched throughout the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, I was also able to watch a number of shorts.  Though I wasn’t able to watch an entire shorts program curated by the programmers, these eight shorts were a diverse group of genres, styles, and topics.     THE AFFECTED The Affected looks at how a social protest affects every person on an airplane.  Set to take off with a refugee…

Here are my reviews for a trio of documentaries that premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival: Cusp, Misha and the Wolves, and Captains of Zaatari.   CUSP Cusp is a piece of Texas American in its purest, rawest form.  The film looks at a trio of high school teenage friends, Brittany, Autumn, and Aaloni, during a fever dream summer.  Throughout this summer, we watch as these free-spirited girls go through the struggles of girlhood while living in…