Listen, I’m a cynical man—so much so that oftentimes I find myself more excited by the number crunching that goes along with super hero blockbusters than I am about the films themselves—but there is a moment in Avengers: Endgame that is awesome in the traditional sense of the word; it fills one with a sense of awe.
It is a moment in the doorway of the film’s climax (to its back is a climactic sequence, in its own right), and it succeeds as a fulfilling moment solely because the business mechanisms that comprise Marvel Studios have allowed for the latitude to make such a broadly fan-service gesture a genuine emotional high point.
My favorite film of 2018 was Chloe Zhao’s The Rider. It is, in my mind, a transcendent experience of intimacy and empathy whose connection to reality enhances its visceral, heartfelt case study of cowboyism.
While watching Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre’s The Mustang, I couldn’t shake the memory of watching The Rider for the first time. Both involve plot mechanics involving horse training and thematic notions of disillusioned masculinity. They both attempt to take a quiet, restrained look at one man’s emotional growth, as well.
God save David Harbour. He has had a strong career up to this point, most notably as a mainstay on Stranger Things. And he does an admirable job filling the shoes of Ron Perlman in Hellboy, the Neil Marshall adaptation-reboot that is doing Harbour no favors.
Harbour brings a similar gruffness to the Mike Mignola character that Perlman does, and there is enough of his charm shining through to cut through the cheesy one-liners, some of the worst one-liners in a blockbuster film since…the ’80s?
Christian Petzold’s Transit explores fleeting moments of humanity within intensely oppressive fascism. Then, it explores the tragedy of hanging any semblance of hope on such moments of humanity, as the moments are infinitesimally small against a backdrop that is increasingly bleak.
The film progresses like a prequel to 1984. Paris is under siege, and the fascist occupation is spreading rapidly. It happens so fast that Continue reading Transit (2019) Movie Review→
The 1989 Pet Sematary film is insane. By today’s standards, it is a dated horror aesthetic, and its scare factor is minimal. But its climax is a circus act of violent hilarity.
It makes for a good campy half of a Stephen King double feature, which is how I first came upon the film. Juxtaposing it with Kubrick’s The Shining may have caused some tonal whiplash, but that only amplified the enjoyment of seeing an undead child prey upon a rural family and their neighbor, played by the often imitated yet inimitable (sorry John Lithgow) Fred Gwynne.
Confusion washed over me when I first saw the trailer for Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer’s Pet Sematary remake. What tone could this film possibly strike that would grant it success? The original was not Continue reading Pet Sematary (2019) Movie Review→
Tim Burton’s live action Dumbo film begins by tracing, whimsically, the path of traveling Medici Bros. Circus. Burton flourishes this ride, particularly as the train passes through a tunnel that morphs into the twirling red and white of a circus tent.
As energetic as this opening trek is, the Medici Bros. (“Bros.,” it bears noting, is a misnomer. A single Medici (Danny Devito) serves both roles), the circus has Continue reading Dumbo (2019) Movie Review→
The first episode of the much anticipated reboot of The Twilight Zone, executive produced and narrated by Jordan Peele, is freely available to watch online. Future episodes are solely available on CBS All Access.
In The Beach Bum, Matthew McConaughey is the most Matthew McConaughey that McConaughey has ever McConaugheyed.
Armed with scraggled, hay-colored hair; flip-up shades; psychedelic Hawaiian print shirts; and constant PBR tallboys, Moondog (McConaughey) has the outer appearance of a grizzled, careless sea dog. But in reality, Moondog is “the most prolific poet in all of Key West, Florida.” This according to a dive bar musician, who allows Moondog on stage to sing along and then riff an unformed piece of poetry.
After intense debating on the /Filmcast, it was decided that Avengers: Endgame is to be included in the annual Summer Movie Wager, a game of box office predictions, in spite of Endgame not technically being released within the Summer movie season (which is arbitrarily defined on Box Office Mojo as the first weekend of May through Labor Day weekend).
That said, the number one spot in the competition is all-but sealed up. Endgame is set to, at the very least, match Infinity War in sales. So barring some failure in storytelling that tanks the word of mouth on the film, it will take the top line.
Jordan Peele understands the horror movie industry. Given he came out of the Blumhouse label with his directorial debut, the massively successful Get Out, this is no controversial statement. But his adept understanding of what works and doesn’t work about a horror film does not end at Jason Blum’s low-risk, high-reward model.
CineFiles Movie Reviews 