Right at the beginning of JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH there is a hint that this is a break from the increasingly lackluster sequels to which we have been subjected. It is the moment when we see that Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), the upbeat mercenary of the piece, is recruiting paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) for… Read More »
FLY ME TO THE MOON
It is well worth overlooking the historical inaccuracies to be found in FLY ME TO THE MOON. I’m not talking about the conspiracy theories about how the first moon landing was faked on a soundstage. This bright and breezy look at what may or may not have really happened has dedicated itself to the emotional,… Read More »
ASTEROID CITY
Wes Anderson’s ASTEROID CITY presents us a dream within a dream as it ponders our place in the cosmos by setting its story in three separate realities that bump into each other the way subatomic particles swarm around an atomic nucleus. Is it synchronicity or chance or some other cosmic law of which humanity is… Read More »
BLACK WIDOW
Braids, French and other, loom large in the visuals of BLACK WIDOW, and it is an apt metaphor. The ultra-femininity of long, flowing hair rigorously trained into orderly rows of tightly disciplined tresses echoes the rigorous training given to ultra-feminine assassin-turned-Avenger Natasha Romanoff, the eponymous super-heroine in this her first spinoff from the Marvel Universe.… Read More »
AVENGERS: ENDGAME
The stakes have been raised so many times with event flicks that, when approaching one, hope is always tempered with experience about what to expect, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson. With AVENGERS: ENDGAME, though, hope wins out. The spectacle is everything it should be, and the story, of necessity a meandering thing, is nonetheless sustained by… Read More »
AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR
For sheer value-for-money, you can’t top AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR. It’s pure entertainment with an endless parade of the kind of whiz-bang special effects, not quite sloppy sentiment, and a constant barrage of the quips and banter that define grace under pressure in the Marvel Universe. Plus, pretty much everyone from the MCU finds his or… Read More »
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR asks the cinematic question “What would happen if we took a whole passel of superheroes from the Marvel Comic universe and tossed them together into one film?” But wait, what if we pitted them against one another over a fundamental difference of opinion about ethics, and then added a dash (or… Read More »
HAIL, CAESAR!
If Douglas Sirk had directed a film noir written by Billy Wilder, it might have looked something like HAIL, CAESAR!, the latest thoughtful tangle of philosophy and whimsy from the Coen Brothers. Taking place in a 1951 Hollywood not entirely unlike the one that actually existed, it mixes Cold War paranoia, carefully managed studio PR… Read More »
CAPTAIN AMERICA — THE WINTER SOLDIER
fIn CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, Captain Steve Rodgers, aka Captain America (Chris Evans), is experiencing an existential crisis. Its not just that he has a lot of catching up to do after being cryogenically asleep for seventy years or so. The novelty of Thai food and the internet dont get him down, its the… Read More »
LOST IN TRANSLATION
With LOST IN TRANSLATION, writer/director Sofia Coppola lives up to the promise of the potential she exhibited in GODFATHER III. This tedious vanity piece is enlivened only by the charm of its leading man, Bill Murray, and by the astonishingly haphazard way in which the film as a whole appears to have been slapped together. Murray plays… Read More »