They Shot the Piano Player (2024)
Spanish director Fernando Truaba is one of those [...]
Comedy
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)
I saw Ghostbusters: Afterlife for the first time yesterday morning because I knew that I was going to see Frozen Empire today. That film broke my heart. It was laughless, listless, needless and retreated to an endless and frustrating series of callbacks to the first movie and recycled the plot without doing anything new with […]
Sometimes I Think About Dying (2023)
It might take an act of Congress just to get Fran to speak. She is painfully shy, socially awkward and keeps to herself. Her day is spent hiding behind her cubicle at work and at night eating cottage cheese before slipping into bed in room drenched in blazing lights from outside that make it look […]
Bottoms (2023)
The first thing to note about the new comedy Bottoms is that it is not playing in the real world. Rather Writer/Director Emma Seligman and her screenwriting partner Rachel Scott have collaborated to tell a story that exists less in the world of The Breakfast Club and more in the surreal world of something like […]
Barbie (2023)
For me, the single funniest moment in Barbie happens in the first three minutes – a hilarious parody of the “Dawn of Man” sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey featuring little girls whose choice of dolls have only ever been baby dolls. Into their midst comes a 50-foot monolith in the shape of a babelicious […]
The Out-Laws (2023)
I want to note, right at the top, that my hatred of the new Netflix “comedy” The Out-Laws was not fueled by the fact that it was produced by Adam Sandler’s “Happy Madison” but it helps me understand the heap of unfunny nothingness that followed. Directed by Tyler Spindel with the light touch of a […]
Amanda (2022)
Okay, here’s my conflict. I am the guy who always howling at the moon over my desire to see something new and different. I want to see the work a filmmaker with a particular vision, a particular style that feels new and inventive. That perfectly describes Italian director Carolina Cavalli, but I am conflicted over […]
Flamin’ Hot (2023)
Ever since Everything, Everywhere All At Once won the Oscar for Best Picture, I’ve been begging for more original content – more films that aren’t sequels, prequels, reboots, remakes, reimaginings, or another universe-building collection of cacophonous hoo-ha. I can’t call Flamin’ Hot – the story of the guy who invented Flaming Hot Cheetos – the most original story […]
Beau is Afraid (2023)
In the wake of two grand horror epics, Hereditary and Midsommar, director Ari Aster was asked what he might be doing next. He hinted that he might want to try a comedy – something a bit away from his previous work. That’s probably best. I think, by this point, he’s pretty much sapped the horror […]
