Movie Reviews

  I normally don’t pay attention to the press tours of movies, where the filmmakers and the actors are interviewed by dozens upon dozens of media and press outlets to promote their latest movie, but it was impossible to escape the press tour for Madame Web, particularly the clips involving the film’s star Dakota Johnson. Johnson’s dry, off-beat brand of humor was in full force in these interviews, as she talked about how “chaotic” shooting…

  Movies don’t get much bigger than Denis Villenuve’s Dune: Part Two, the action-packed and surprisingly emotional continuation of 2021’s Dune: Part One. Dune: Part Two continues the story of Paul Atreidis (Timothée Chalamet) and his journey to get revenge on House Harkonnen for killing his father and overtaking House Atreidis on the planet of Arrakis. Part Two picks up right where Part One ended with Paul and his mother Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) having joined…

  In my review last year of Sophia Coppola’s Priscilla, I wrote briefly about movies with similar subjects coming out within a year of each other, like Armageddon and Deep Impact, Wyatt Earp and Tombstone, Elvis and Priscilla, and the list goes on. We’ve just done that again in the forms of Reality and Winner, two films that look at NSA whistleblower Reality Winner (her actual name) who leaked government documents in 2017 showing Russia’s…

  Watching Argylle, the latest action film from director Matthew Vaugh, was an astounding experience because I can’t think of a movie where I could feel and see it getting worse with every passing minute. What starts off as a fun spy romance soon balloons into a film that is so focused on attempting to trick the audience and amaze us with action sequences (it fails on both counts) that it loses everything good about…

  Will Ferrell is one of the great comedic actors of the 2000s, starring in iconic comedies like Old School, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy, and The Other Guys. Will & Harper finds Ferrell in a new light as he is at the center of director Josh Greenbaum’s documentary as Ferrell and his best friend of thirty years Harper Steele take a cross-country road trip together following Steele coming out to Ferrell and transgender….

  Chris Nash’s In a Violent Nature has a great concept behind it: a slasher movie from the point of view of the killer. I love this idea on paper and thought In a Violent Nature was going to be another subversion of the slasher genre and a shot to the arm of one of my favorite subgenres of horror. The idea of the film works well for most of the film, but the surprisingly…

  Freaky Tales is like Quentin Tarantino made a movie about the Bay Area. This is a non-linear, interconnecting story about several lives in a revisionist version of the Bay Area 1987 that is full of life, attitude, and interesting filmmaking. Following Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, a movie that shook the cinematic landscape back in the mid-90s, there was a wave of filmmakers trying to create the next Pulp Fiction. It felt like every year…

  I don’t know if I have ever had an emotional experience in a movie like I did when I saw Angela Patton and Natalie Rae’s documentary Daughters. This movie broke me and brought everyone in the theater to tears, some becoming blubbering messes. Daughters looks at the daughters of incarcerated fathers as they prepare for a special Daddy Daughter Dance held at the prison their fathers are in as part of a new and…

  Director and co-writer Rose Glass firmly establishes herself as one of the most exciting up-and-coming directors with her latest film Love Lies Bleeding, a pulpy, bloody queer romance about our past and familial sins that features the best performance of Kristen Stewart’s career. Stewart plays Lou, a reclusive manager of a grimy gym in 1980s New Mexico. One day at the gym, she meets Jackie (Katy O’Brian), who is rolling through town to get…

  I wouldn’t consider directors David and Nathan Zellner’s latest film Sasquatch Sunset a great film. Heck, it might even ride the line between good and mediocre. But it is a movie I am glad exists because of the skilled filmmaking and the sheer originality. Sasquatch Sunset looks at a year in the life of a family of Sasquatch. They wander the unknown forests in search of food and shelter while trying to survive the…