Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri

There’s a difference between having a movie full of unlikable characters that you hate watching and a movie with unlikable characters that you are still captivated by. The difference here is obvious: its the writing that keeps them from being flat, the directing to lead them in the right direction, and of course the performances […]

Justice League

It wasn’t terrible. Well, okay… it was terrible. But somehow I didn’t hate it. Lets face facts, this is not a good movie. The script feels cobbled together, the tone is hard to pinpoint, and The Flash as the comic relief falls flat every time. I don’t think I heard anyone in the theater laugh at […]

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Star Wars is back, and this time so is Luke Skywalker! And I must say, seeing him as a full-fledged, aging Jedi is simply awesome. He has grown very powerful yet world-weary, and I really think they took him in the right direction.  Mark Hamill sunk right back into the character and took him places that […]

Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient express is a remake of the classic film based on the classic Agatha Christie novel.  And they do a good job of making it feel old-fashioned.  There’s a certain, nebulous “murder mystery” feel that this new film is able to capture, and because of that I enjoyed it quite a lot.  […]

Thor Ragnarok

The Thor Trilogy takes a tonal shift with its third installment as the Marvel film magnates have decided they want to pull people in by making it more like the smash hit Guardians of the Galaxy.  The result is a conclusion of the somewhat mythological story of Asgard mashed with humour-filled, cosmic wackiness.  As it […]

War for the Planet of the Apes

Its odd; I really enjoyed both Rise and Dawn, but I never felt a lot of excitement towards the concluding chapter in this new Planet of the Apes trilogy.  I can’t really say why, I just wasn’t.  I didn’t bother to see it in theaters, and only now caught it on video.  There’s really no […]

It

It has really become (oh man, I really hate using this pun) the “it” movie this year.  All the kids are talking about it.  Movies that get talked about like this don’t seem to happen often anymore, especially horror films.  I can see why this was so popular; it was chalk full of creepy moments […]

The Big Sick

I love listening to podcasts, and one of the podcasts I’ve listened to is The X-Files Files with Kumail Nanjiani, who always has different guest hosts to discuss episode of The X-Files and whatever topics they digress to. Through this podcast I have also heard quite a bit from his wife Emily, as well as […]

Dunkirk

How great are movies? Am I right? They have the ability to thrill us, wow us, and make us feel like we are part of the experience.  Christopher Nolan wants us to feel Dunkirk, not just watch the events unfold, and he has put all his film-making powers towards that goal.  What resulted was me […]

Wonder Woman

I liked it. The biggest reason why is probably Gal Gadot, who I thought really nailed this role. Its very clear that she fights out of compassion and a true desire to make things better in the world, and that’s pretty refreshing. She’s really good at creating those little personality moments that casually give her […]

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

(Honestly, just call it Pirates 5…) About 10 years ago, George Lucas made a statement that soon the Hollywood blockbuster would be dead.  It appears that the opposite has come true instead.  Blockbusters are sinking their claws into us, so much so that I walked out of this fifth film in a massively overblown series […]

Alien Covenant

*Warning:  This review will have spoilers Prometheus, this ain’t. While Prometheus had a strong theme about the question of where we come from, Covenant takes that theme and beats it like a rug. I will say it adds a lot to the Alien mythology, but I’m not really sure I like where it is taken. […]

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

This movie is pulling me in both directions. On the one hand,m there is a lot of stuff that would normally have me hating a movie like this. On the other hand, the stuff that’s good is so good that it pulls be back to somewhere in the middle. What I didn’t like: This is […]

The Founder

The Founder is essentially an “absolute power corrupts absolutely” story with the setting of an American fast food franchise.  And not just any American fast food franchise, THE American fast food franchise.  This films tells the tale of how businessman Ray Croc took the revolutionary ideas behind a fast service burger joint and took it […]

Logan

This is about as serious a comic book superhero movie as anyone is going to make. And because of the history we have with these characters, it works. Its an interesting question to ask how well it would work if we had never encountered Wolverine or Prof X before, but regardless, that’s not the case […]