movie reviews
Movie Review: The Mastermind
3.5 stars out of 5I left this movie thinking I’d be giving it a higher rating than the aggregated writers on Metacritic. Was surprised to see that, no, it was averaging 80 out of 100, with a handful of perfect 100s from a few top reviewers. Well, I guess there’s a new hardass in town! […]
Movie Review: Frankenstein
4.5 stars out of 5 Guillermo del Toro has quietly become one of my favorite filmmakers. This is his fourth consecutive movie (after The Shape of Water, Nightmare Alley, and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinnochio) that I’ve rated 4.5 stars out of 5, and Pan’s Labyrinth is a classic as well. And via interviews, I’ve learned […]
Movie Review: Springsteen — Deliver Me From Nowhere
4 stars out of 5 I try to buy any new Springsteen album on the day of release, and it turns out I’m an opening-day guy for any Bruce biopics too. Had obviously been looking forward to this movie, after so many reports of filming days in Asbury Park, Bruce sightings on-set, etc. And I’ve […]
Movie Review: One Battle After Another
4 stars out of 5 Maybe Trump caught an early screening of this before they started sending National Guard troops against U.S. citizens. We start 16 years ago (but it might have been yesterday), when a band of revolutionaries are freeing detained immigrants. These anti-fascists include Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor (who I’ve only seen in […]
Movie Review: The Long Walk
4 stars out of 5 I approve of Stephen King as an author and as a human being, but as I covered in my review of IT, I’ve never read his stuff or even seen most of the movies based on it. Which made The Long Walk another total surprise for me. The trailer really […]
Movie Review: Spinal Tap II — The End Continues
3.5 stars out of 5 Upon re-watching 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap early in the pandemic, I rated it 10 out of 10 on IMDb, and if the scale allowed me, would’ve gone to 11. I was 15 years old when the movie first came out and it was a perfect blend of smart and […]
Movie Review: The Conjuring — Last Rites
3.5 stars out of 5If you’re keeping score: First I watched The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2, Annabelle Comes Home, and Annabelle: Creation on cable. In 2021, I went to the theater to see The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. Since then on cable I’ve watched Annabelle and The Nun. I returned to the […]
Movie Review: Honey Don’t!
4 stars out of 5 I liked Drive-Away Dolls a lot more than you did, and guess what, I liked Honey Don’t! more than you did too. In fact, I liked it even more! Hollywood historians will be able to identify the precise “tipping point” when Margaret Qualley became a national treasure: 1 minute, 13 […]
Movie Review: Caught Stealing
3 stars out of 5 I’ve seen Caught Stealing, once, when I was 55. Whoops I mean 56. Hi Darren Aronofsky. Big fan. Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan, The Wrestler, Mother!: awesome. The Whale, Noah: pretty good. The Fountain was incomprehensible garbage but, hey, you tried. Caught Stealing is… average. Innocent likable guy gets […]
Movie Review: Weapons
4 stars out of 5 Three years ago, I was quite taken with Zach Cregger’s off-kilter horror flick Barbarian. This summer, Zach is back with Weapons, and he’s once again playing with the horror formula. He sets things up with a strong conceit: Julia Garner (who I last saw in Wolf Man) is a third-grade […]
Jack Silbert, curator