80s movies
Movie Review: Ghostbusters — Afterlife
4 stars out of 5Ghostbusters is my jam. It was perfection when I was 15: an ideal blend of smart, silly, juvenile, and flat-out funny. I’ll always remember being at my buddy John’s house for New Year’s Eve; at midnight we discovered that HBO was playing Ghostbusters, and even though we’d both seen it in […]
Movie Review: Dune
3.5 stars out of 5Never read Dune, never watched Dune. In middle school it seemed like a lot of dudes were reading it. Not. And even though I loved Sting and later, David Lynch, no interest in the movie. Decades went by, and finally I decided to check out the reboot — in a theater […]
Movie Review: Blade Runner 2049
4 stars out of 5 When I was young, I’m fairly certain I had a paperback of Blade Runner, inside of which I learned the book was originally titled Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Although, proving the fallacy of memory — which is a big theme in this film — in my mind I […]
Movie Review: IT
4.5 stars out of 5 IT is scary as sh*t. IT’s also many other things: funny, sweet, sad, nostalgic, and very well-crafted. But if you’re someone who doesn’t like to be frightened, well, you’re really going to miss out on a good one. And this is coming from somebody who’s not really a Stephen King […]
Movie Review: Alien — Covenant
4 stars out of 5 I’ve had so much weird stuff come out of my abdomen in the past many months, it felt like I was starring in my own personal Alien sequel. But my interest in the actual series was re-sparked this winter when my friend Patrick rented Prometheus. It was much better than […]
Movie Review: The Nice Guys
3 stars out of 5 Ah, OK, it all makes sense now: Director/co-writer Shane Black wrote the original Lethal Weapon. Because this is totally, totally the Lethal Weapon formula: mismatched buddies fightin’ crime and crackin’ wise. It’s 1977 in Los Angeles. The movie tries a little too hard to tell us “hey it’s 1977!” (The […]
Movie Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
4 stars out of 5 I was 8 years old when the original Star Wars came out and like everybody else I knew, I was all in. Poster on my bedroom wall, action figures, comic books. I loved trying to draw R2-D2. My dad took me into San Francisco one day to meet Darth Vader, […]
Movie Review: Creed
3.5 stars out of 5 So, there’s this new installment in a long-running movie series, started in the ’70s, good vs. evil, iconic music. But people are especially psyched for this one because it consciously connects back to the “classic era.” Of course, I am referring to Creed, the latest chapter in the Rocky saga. […]
Movie Review: Vacation
2 stars out of 5 Timing, as they say, is everything. On Tuesday, I wanted to go to the movies at my local theater. First choice, the new Mission: Impossible. Second choice, Southpaw. Alas, the starting times didn’t jibe with my schedule, so I was forced to choose door No. 3: Vacation. Now, I sensed […]
Movie Review: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
3 stars out of 5 For recent vintage coming-of-age movies set in Pittsburgh, Adventureland (2009) is—in my not-so-humble opinion—far and away the best. Coming in second: 2012’s The Perks of Being of a Wallflower. Taking the bronze from the Iron City? Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. In a nutshell, our teenage protagonist befriends […]
Jack Silbert, curator