movie reviews
Movie Review: Brian Banks
3.5 stars out of 5I honestly thought I’d bought a ticket to a documentary; that’s how quickly I had read the description of this movie. Was caught off-guard when “Based on a true story” popped up on the screen. But hey, I can adjust. I did correctly read that the story involved the real-life California […]
Movie Review: The Mountain
2.5 stars out of 5 Jeff Goldblum and old-timey mental hospitals? This really seemed up my alley. We meet young, sad, inexpressive Andy who works in a hockey rink run by his grandpa oh wait the movie says it’s his dad. It is the early 1950s and the world is grey and brown, or at […]
Movie Review: Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
4.5 stars out of 5I feel like I’m in an unhealthy long-term relationship with Quentin Tarantino. We got off to an excellent start, but now he disappoints me time and again, and yet always manages to lure me back. Every now and then, he surprises me with a delightful bed-and-breakfast long weekend (um, wait, I […]
Movie Review: Sword of Trust
2.5 stars out of 5 The trailer looked cute — Marc Maron working in a pawn shop. Was playing at the artsy theater in Asbury Park, so I could beat the traffic before a concert, chat with the friendly ticket booth guy, sit in some air conditioning, and enjoy another chocolate covered graham cracker. Nice […]
Movie Review: Marianne & Leonard — Words of Love
4 stars out of 5 I’ll never hear the song “So Long, Marianne” quite the same way again. What a sweet and sad love story this documentary is! I’ve been a Leonard Cohen fan since my mid-20s — “Bird on a Wire” was the first that really got me — but I never knew too […]
Movie Review: Midsommar
4 stars out of 5 This might sound a little weird, but Midsommar made me miss Woody Allen. I was the only one in an Asbury Park theater watching this thoroughly f’ed up story unfold against a gorgeous sunny Swedish backdrop. And I flashed back to Woody’s summer releases. Every year there seemed to be […]
Movie Review: Spider-Man — Far From Home
3.5 stars out of 5 The final 45 minutes of this movie is pretty terrific superhero stuff. Go get ‘im, Spidey! Unfortunately, there are about 90 minutes prior to this that are Far From Great. We begin by seeing a high-school Powerpoint presentation, and it’s teens doing it, so they use Comic Sans. No they […]
Movie Review: The Dead Don’t Die
4.5 stars out of 5 Yes, I respond very positively to movies that are well-made and entertaining. But when a film also appeals to your own bizarro subset of sensibilities, that’s a rare and special thing, and that’s what The Dead Don’t Die is to me. Either independent movies used to be quirkier or I […]
Movie Review: Godzilla — King of the Monsters
4 out of 5 stars As the very beginning flashes back to 2014, I wondered if I was watching a sequel to some Godzilla movie I’d never seen. Later, when David Strathairn shows up as a serious military dude, I thought, “Hmm, I do vaguely remember him as a serious military dude,” and worried that […]
Movie Review: The Souvenir
3.5 stars out of 5 Two generations of Swintons? Count me in! Tilda has a relatively small role in this, but it’s all about her daughter Honor Swinton Byrne. She plays 24-year-old Julie who wants to make films. Ah, but not about her relatively comfortable existence; she’d rather focus on a boy in the northern […]
Jack Silbert, curator