Tag Archives: Domhnall Gleeson

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Drama, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

The Kitchen (2019) Movie Review

August 7, 2019 Alex Brannan Leave a comment

1978, Hell’s Kitchen. Three Irish gangsters (James Badge Dale, Brian d’Arcy James, and Jeremy Bobb) get arrested following a police sting and are sentenced to three years in prison. Their wives (Tiffany Haddish, Melissa McCarthy, and Elisabeth Moss) are effectively cut off from their source of income. Their mob ties start short-shrifting their cash kickback. Kathy Brennan (McCarthy) tries to get work, but she is turned away because she has young children.

The three women decide to take over their husbands’ business, spreading more lucrative support to local business and strong-arming the men that Continue reading The Kitchen (2019) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

American Made (2017) Movie Review

September 29, 2017 Alex Brannan Leave a comment

One thing that American Made is not is moral. Whether it is political, however, is a different question entirely.

The Doug Liman-directed, Gary Spinelli-penned film tells the pseudo-real life story of pilot Barry Seal (Tom Cruise), who is tapped by the CIA and, eventually, the Pablo Escobar drug cartel, to run product between the U.S. and Nicaragua in the early 1980s.

The film weaves the conspiratorial story of excess and escalating stakes through Cruise’s charming persona, which feels Continue reading American Made (2017) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Mother! (2017) Movie Review

September 15, 2017 Alex Brannan Leave a comment

In the New York Post review of Darren Aronofsky’s new feature film Mother!, critic Sara Stewart calls the film “a Rorschach test of a movie to interpret however you like.” Not only is this statement accurate, but it is the fatal flaw that sinks this unwieldy monster of a film.

There is so much to unpack with Mother! that it becomes not a question of “what?” but a question of Continue reading Mother! (2017) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Drama, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Love It

The Revenant (2015) Movie Review

January 12, 2016 Alex Brannan 2 Comments

The Revenant has the viscera of a Braveheart or a Gangs of New York, with the now familiar touch of director Alejandro G. Inarritu. His style shows through with an even stronger flourish than that of his previous film Birdman, as it links itself more naturally with the thematic elements that are in play in the film.

The film centers on Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio), a hunter on a fur trading expedition who seeks vengeance after becoming severely wounded and left for dead in the 19th century wilderness.

The only true way to describe this film is to call it Continue reading The Revenant (2015) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Star Wars Episode VII – The Force Awakens (2015) Movie Review

December 17, 2015 Alex Brannan Leave a comment

Note: I’ve tried to make this review as spoiler free as possible. That said, one person’s reaction is another person’s spoiler. I can’t make this 100% devoid of spoilers. Proceed at your own risk.

Star Wars – The Force Awakens is directed by J.J. Abrams, and it is the first new Star Wars film in 10 years. Easily the most anticipated movie of the year, The Force Awakens could have been the biggest disappointment since, well, The Phantom Menace. Thankfully, this is not the case.

This part is unavoidable, but it must be mentioned. Continue reading Star Wars Episode VII – The Force Awakens (2015) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Like It, Quickie Reviews (<400 Words), Romance

Brooklyn (2015) Movie Review

November 28, 2015 Alex Brannan Leave a comment

Brooklyn is a film starring Saoirse Ronan as a young Irish emigre, Eilis, who moves to New York in the early 1950s to find work, leaving behind a mother and sister as a result. In Brooklyn, she stays at a boarding house with four other women of differing personality, works at a department store (but takes night classes to become a bookkeeper), and falls for a young Italian man named Tony (Emory Cohen).

The film makes a marked transition from Eilis’s process of immigration and settling into her new world to her Continue reading Brooklyn (2015) Movie Review →