“Waves” doesn’t completely crash, but it doesn’t provide much of a rush, either. This low-key family drama packs nearly a dozen crucial life elements into a single story. Unfortunately, writer/director Trey Edward Shults (“It Comes At Night”) doesn’t gives us anything fresh or insightful about any of them. Shults continues a recent trend by playing […]
Five years after the first “Maleficent” shook-up the classic “Sleeping Beauty” story, Angelina Jolie’s horned villain is back. Well, sort of. Jolie’s character doesn’t really have much of a presence in her own sequel. That’s just one of the many problems with “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil”. As was the case last time, Maleficent is somewhat […]
Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film is not just a love letter to Tinseltown – it’s a full-blown marriage proposal. “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” is his look at the motion picture and TV industry in 1969, through the eyes of both fictional characters and real people who lived during that time. This blending is one […]
“Coraline”, “ParaNorman”, “The Boxtrolls” and “Kubo and the Two Strings” all raised the bar when it comes to the medium of stop-motion animation. Each challenged storytelling conventions. Each took visual risks that paid off. And they all held firm against the temptation to please audiences of all ages. Unfortunately, Laika Animation’s fifth feature, “Missing Link”, […]
Jordan Peele spent years crafting “Get Out”. In his 2018 Best Original Screenplay Oscars speech, he remarked that, “I stopped writing this movie about 20 times because I thought it was impossible.” But once you’ve made a hit movie, now comes the real hard part: the studio (in this case Universal) wants you to quickly […]
“Alita: Battle Angel”, from director Robert Rodriguez and co-writer/producer James Cameron, was originally set to be released last July as a potential summer blockbuster. Then FOX shuffled their schedule and pushed it to December, hoping for a holiday hit. But then the studio got greedy with the whole “Once Upon a Deadpool” thing (which didn’t […]
Considering the amazingly effective (live-action) revelation at the end of “The LEGO Movie”, it was going to be tough to construct a sequel that proved the spirit, energy and innocence of the original. I just didn’t think it would be this hard. Safe to say, not everything is awesome with “The LEGO Movie 2: The […]
Adam McKay went from making goofy comedies to winning an Oscar for co-writing 2015’s financial crisis dramedy “The Big Short”. McKay collaborated on that script with Charles Randolph. But he went solo on the screenplay for his latest film,”Vice”, while also directing. And it shows. In short, “Vice” is much more of an ‘Adam McKay […]
Laurel & Hardy… a comedy duo whose heyday was the 1930s and 40s. That’s over 75 years ago. To be brutally honest, not many people who would truly appreciate a movie about the final years of Laurel & Hardy are still alive to see it. That’s one of the biggest challenges facing “Stan & Ollie”. […]
“The Front Runner” stars Hugh Jackman as former Presidential candidate and scandal-marred political figure, Gary Hart. It’s the first non-musical, dramatic role of Jackman’s post-Wolverine career. Jackman does get one six-second shouting moment that will forever be used on his highlight reel. But an uneven script and superficial treatment of the subject matter hold the […]