Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is getting a lot of acclaim and attention for being the first Marvel movie to be led by an overwhelmingly Asian cast. It’s quite cool and mostly lives up to all of that hype.
Author: Chris Burlingame
Candyman can scare the bejesus out of you, if you want it to
Set in the fast-gentrifying Chicago arts scene, this updated-for-2021 slasher/thriller wants you to know that it’s politics are righteous. If it provides a few thrillers, even better. Overall, I liked it, even if there were often times when the politics felt heavy-handed and took away from the scarier aspects of the thriller, even when I agree passionately with the points the filmmaker is making. Still, there was plenty of horror that came through clearly.
For Madmen Only pays tribute to the comedy legend that probably mentored your favorite comedians
I had never heard of Del Close before learning of this illuminating documentary about his life. Close was a comedic actor and writer, but he’s most known as one of the major authorities on improvisational comedy whose list of proteges is impressive and unparalleled. Clips of Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Robin Williams, among many of their peers, are shown praising Del Close. Bob Odenkirk, Tim Meadows, and Adam McKay are interviewed for the movie and they all have stories about the impact Close had on their lives. He’s probably responsible, at least indirectly, for a supermajority of times I’ve laughed in my life.
A heartbreaking saga about suicide and, uhh, squads
Every superhero movie is ridiculous on some level. How ridiculous is the new Suicide Squad movie? There’s a character called Polka-Dot Man, whose superpower is the ability to throw polka-dots, and he’s possibly the fourth most absurd character in this movie.
By being “good,” Old is M. Night Shyamalan’s best movie in twenty years
It almost appears hyperbolic to say Old is M. Night Shyamalan’s best film in decades, but he’s produced more shit over the past twenty years than what can be safely extracted through Jair Bolsonaro’s nose. It’s been a wild fall from grace where the director was telling magazine writers after the success of his breakthrough The Sixth Sense that he figured out the formula for making hit movies, and then he basically turned into Max Bialystock after his follow-up Unbreakable (his best movie, IMO). After a series of box office bombs, people began booing when his name was shown in trailers.
That’s not to say that Old isn’t ridiculous. It very much is. It’s camp, but it leans into it.
Boss Baby: Family Business introduces the next ruling class trend: the girlboss baby
No one’s hyper-online bingo card includes a square for “Almost eighty year old economist talks about a Boss Baby movie with smartass podcasters.” Yet, here we are and I eagerly accepted the chance to write about the lessons of late capitalism we can learn from the second Boss Baby movie, Family Business. And there are some!
LFG is a documentary by and for the casual women’s soccer fan
The new documentary LFG (which every sports fan that’s ever been on Twitter understands to mean “let’s fucking go!”) tells the story of USWNT’s fight for equal pay. It’s a well-made film that gives ample screentime to the remarkable Megan Rapinoe (a huge reason why I had been a season ticket holder for her club team OL Reign for many years). For those that followed USWNT’s fight for equal pay prior to 2019, it’s infuriating. At least it was for me.
Hey look! It’s a sneak preview of Disney’s new “Heroes and Villains” costumes exhibit at MoPop
The Museum of Pop Culture is becoming the first museum to show the new “Heroes and Villains” exhibit the Walt Disney Archives put together to show off some of their most iconic costumes throughout their history. I have a genuine fondness for a lot of Disney movies, so I thought it was pretty cool.
Noveltease Theatre takes The Odyssey from the page to the screen
In their own words, Noveltease says, “Odysseus’s misadventures on his journey home to Ithaca have often been told only through the hero’s perspective. This production weaves together narrative perspectives from Odysseus, Penelope, and the goddess Athena as it adapts from the translation by Emily Wilson — the first woman to translate The Odyssey.” It is almost certainly the sexiest adaptation of The Odyssey in the poem’s 2,800 year history.
P!nk: All That I Know So Far sells you on the pop star’s next tour
Of all of the pop shows I’ve been to, Pink put on the best performance. Easily. It was a high energy experience that was part rock/pop show, and part Cirque du Soleil. None of the other pop stars would attempt the things on stage Pink made look easy.