Tag: Movie Review

REVIEW: Bird Box (2018)

Release Poster – Netflix

The following is a review of Bird Box — Directed by Susanne Bier.

The post-apocalyptic novel upon which Susanne Bier’s film of the same name, Bird Box, is based came out in 2014. So, let’s just get one thing out of the way, its ideas, though perhaps stale in a world where A Quiet Place just came out months ago, do not deserve to be cast aside just because Krasinski beat Bier to the punch. Besides, A Quiet Place isn’t even the film Bird Box resembles the most. Continue reading “REVIEW: Bird Box (2018)” →

REVIEW: Roma (2018)

Release Poster – Netflix

The following is a review of Roma — Directed by Alfonso Cuarón

There was something very nice and special about my experience of watching Alfonso Cuarón’s latest drama on Netflix, the sole distributor of this film. This is a streaming platform that hopes to be able to take this Mexican heartbreaker all the way to the Academy Awards. Netflix gets a lot of criticism from the film community and, for a lot of it, it is well-earned. Their logo is bright red-on-white, its logo’s sound effect is loud and intrusive, and once the film comes to an end you are yanked away by the service to watch the trailer for some other Netflix Original, thus rushing you out of the experience of sitting with a film, taking it in properly, during the final credits. Continue reading “REVIEW: Roma (2018)” →

REVIEW: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

Theatrical Release Poster – Sony Pictures Releasing

The following is a review of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse — Directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman

The late, great, legendary film critic Roger Ebert opened his review of my favorite Spider-Man film, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, with the line: “Now this is what a superhero movie should be,” a sentence that feels pretty appropriate to use today when describing the first of, likely, many theatrically released Sony Pictures Animation Spider-Man-related films because Into the Spider-Verse is a special movie in virtually every way imaginable.
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REVIEW: Aquaman (2018)

Theatrical Release Poster – Warner Bros. Pictures

The following is a review of Aquaman — Directed by James Wan

If you are reading this as a die-hard Aquaman-fan, I’m sorry but I have to start off my review like this: I’ve never thought that highly of the character. I didn’t make dumb water-jokes about him, but, for the longest time, the first things I thought about when I heard someone mention ‘Aquaman’ was, first, Alan Ritchson in CW’s Smallville and, then, the fake James Cameron film from HBO’s Entourage. Continue reading “REVIEW: Aquaman (2018)” →

REVIEW: The House That Jack Built (2018)

Theatrical Release Poster (Director) — TrustNordisk / Zentropa / IFC Films

The following is a review of The House That Jack Built — Directed by Lars Von Trier.

I have in a previous review described Lars Von Trier, the controversial Danish auteur, as a ‘true auteur mad man,’ and I’ve thought of him as the devil on Danish director Jørgen Leth’s shoulder guiding his every move in the fascinating documentary The Five Obstructions. He has been accused of sexual harassment, some people think he is a misogynist, and he has made a fool of himself by joking about his own identity, Naziism, and Israel. I’m not sure he cares whether or not you like him, and I’m sure he’d say that he’s perfectly happy knowing that his films divide audiences.
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REVIEW: A Star is Born (2018)

Theatrical Release Poster – Warner Bros. Pictures

The following is a review of A Star is Born — Directed by Bradley Cooper.

There is a scene towards the end of the film, where Sam Elliott’s character gives a speech about twelve notes, an octave, and the same story being told over and over again. This feels like first-time director Bradley Cooper’s attempt to justify remaking the A Star is Born story for the third time — the industry is cyclical and only the artists can make new attempts unique.
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REVIEW: Widows (2018)

Theatrical Release Poster – 20th Century Fox

The following is a review of Widows — Directed by Steve McQueen.

Based on Linda La Plante’s 1980s crime drama of the same name, Widows is only the fourth feature film from Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and BFI Fellowship-winning film director Steve McQueen, who has now teamed up with crime writer Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl & Sharp Objects). After having made films about Irish history, sex addiction, and the American history of slavery, McQueen’s latest film tackles themes such as class, politics, and gender via an audience-pleasing genre. Continue reading “REVIEW: Widows (2018)” →

REVIEW: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)

Theatrical Release Poster – Warner Bros. Pictures

The following is a review of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald — Directed by David Yates.

Everybody wants to rule the world. Everybody wants to be Marvel Studios or Lucasfilm. It is perfectly natural to want to make many Harry Potter spin-off films, but it is a bit much to want to make five films about Newt Scamander. But that isn’t all Fantastic Beasts is. Because this film makes it very clear that the Fantastic Beasts-brand is used as an all-encompassing title for every prequel spin-off dream Warner Bros. and J. K. Rowling, who is now writing the scripts for these films without basing it on a book of hers, could be interested in. Continue reading “REVIEW: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)” →

REVIEW: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

Release Poster – Netflix

The following is a review of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs — Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen.

Netflix has come a long way since its first original film in the western genre, 2015’s The Ridiculous Six, which was so poorly received that it still now, at the time of writing, has a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes‘ Tomatometer. Not a single Rotten Tomatoes approved critic liked the film that I called “possibly the worst film of 2015.”

Now here we are in November of 2018, and now Netflix has a new western original film to champion. Netflix has teamed up with the widely celebrated Coen Brothers to release a collection of American western stories presented as an anthology film and not as a series, as it was previously reported as. The Coens’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is hysterical, sad, and morbid, and it is one of my favorite films of the year thus far.  Continue reading “REVIEW: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)” →

REVIEW: Suspiria (2018)

Theatrical Release Poster – Amazon Studios

The following is a review of Suspiria — Directed by Luca Guadagnino.

The original Dario Argento Italian horror classic Suspiria is one of those films horror fanatics scream from the rooftops for you to watch. For the longest time, I was one of those who ignored that call. To prepare for Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 reimagining of the same name, I finally decided to sit down and watch Argento’s film, and while I didn’t love it as much as its disciples do, I recognized it as a stunning stylish classic with a frightening musical theme, but the dialogue and the acting left something to be desired. Continue reading “REVIEW: Suspiria (2018)” →