One of the talking points around the Fast & Furious franchise is how unrealistic and insane the movies have gotten. What started as a street-level franchise about cops, criminals, and car racing progressively became globe-trotting espionage spectacles filled with action, cars, and dozens of characters played by big-time actors. With the movies getting bigger, both in popularity and in budget and effects, the plots kept getting more complicated and the stories more ridiculous to…

  The opening credits of the first Guardians of the Galaxy saw Peter Quill/Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) landing on a planet, entering a cave, putting on the headphones to his old Walkman cassette player, and playing “Come and Get Your Love” by Redbone as he dances and struts through the cave. In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, the film’s opening credits are of Baby Groot dancing to “Mr. Blue Sky” by Electric Light Orchestra while…

  I saw The Super Mario Bros. Movie a few weeks ago and since then the movie has become a box office sensation. It will crack $1 billion at the global box office, and it continues to dominate the domestic box office, children everywhere are seeing it and loving it and some adults are too. The critical response to the film, however, was less enthusiastic. Sitting currently at 59% on Rotten Tomatoes (meaning 59% of…

  If you’ve followed me over the last few years, you know I am a big fan of director Ari Aster. His directorial debut, Hereditary, was my favorite movie of 2018 and one of my ten favorite movies of the decade. His second film, Midsommar, landed in my top ten of 2019. With just those two films, Aster became a director I immediately connected with and a director whose next films I would eagerly await….

  Broken Lizard, the comedy team comprised of Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, and Erik Stohlhanske, has been making movies for over twenty years are responsible for some of the great cult comedies of the 2000s. While their movies are hilarious, one thing the Broken Lizard crew doesn’t get enough credit for is how good they are at paying homage to the specific genres of their films. Super Troopers, the film that…

  Showing Up is a quiet slice of life from the great Kelly Reichardt. Reichardt’s latest takes us into the world of the Portland art scene where we look at an artist’s preparation for her latest show and the stresses that she deals with in the week leading up to it. It’s a delicate, amusing, and surprisingly stressful film about the creative process and being an artist. Michelle Williams, working with Reichardt for the fourth…