movie reviews
Movie Review: The Phoenician Scheme
4.5 stars out of 5I was so thrilled while watching this movie that only now, with a distance of a few days, do I realize that I didn’t totally get the ending, that maybe I passed out for a couple of key scenes in the last 20 minutes. But everything else was so much fun, […]
Movie Review: Mission Impossible—Final Reckoning
3.5 stars out of 5Well, it’s the final Mission: Impossible, I reckon — until they decide to reboot the series in two years with an extended cameo from Tom Cruise as Jim Phelps. Or it’s a prequel reboot streaming show focusing on Phelps’ early days, to air on Amazon Prime. Principal photography will likely begin […]
Movie Review: Friendship
3.5 stars out of 5I don’t know who Andrew DeYoung is. Andrew Young, I know. Former mayor of Atlanta and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Still with us: 93 years old! Andrew DeYoung, I don’t know. (Singer of Styx?) But he wrote and directed Friendship, it’s his first feature after a lot of TV […]
Movie Review: Thunderbolts
3.5 stars out of 5 Florence Pugh is the latest A-list actor to slum her way through a Marvel flick. I know what you’re saying: “But Jack, Pugh already slummed her way through Black Widow back in 2021.” I didn’t see that one, OK? Plus now she’s really putting herself out there as the star. […]
Movie Review: The Shrouds
4 stars out of 5In 2022, I gave a positive review to Crimes of the Future, written and directed by the then-79-year-old David Cronenberg. Showing that the apple doesn’t fall far from the fucked-up tree, I gave an equally positive review to 43-year-old son Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool. Ah, but the senior Croney wasn’t quite […]
Movie Review: Warfare
4.5 stars out of 5 I really don’t go to see many war movies. Platoon, Casualties of War, Heartbreak Ridge, Three Kings, maybe a few others, I don’t remember, all that dust and guns. But when I noticed that my boy Alex Garland (Civil War, Annihilation, Ex Machina) was the co-writer and co-director here, I […]
Movie Review: Sinners
4.5 stars out of 5 Coogler and Jordan are a dream team: Fruitville Station, Creed, and, my people are telling me that Michael B. Jordan was also in Black Panther. So when I saw they teamed up once again for Sinners, I knew I’d see the movie right away. And I did; it just took […]
Movie Review: The Friend
3.5 stars out of 5I’ll tell you what the ads won’t: Bill Murray is barely in this movie. His presence is in the movie, but the physical Bill — not so much. So if he’s your only reason for seeing it… don’t. For everyone else, this is a solid, slow-paced, grown-up movie about grief, loneliness, […]
Movie Review: Opus
2.5 stars out of 5This seemed up my alley: A reclusive pop star makes a comeback after 30 years. And the reclusive star is played by… John Malkovich! Oh, remember our carefree Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich days? We were so young and carefree! Could this offbeat film capture that old Charlie Kaufman-era magic? I would find […]
Jack Silbert, curator