Even though I am fast-developing a reputation as the easiest-to-cry member of the Seattle film press, I don’t think there’s anything I could’ve done to emotionally prepare for how powerful and quietly intense this movie is.
Author: Chris Burlingame
Rodeo is an exciting film from a first time director and a first-time star
In the first few moments of the thrilling new movie Rodeo, we learn that its protagonist Julia is a lone wolf and antihero. She doesn’t make friends easily, she blows off work, has alienated her family, and she steals whatever she wants or needs. Her one passion is motorcycles.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline is as radical and as potent as its title suggests
It’s hard not to sympathize with the environmental activists turned ecoterrorists at the heart of the potent new movie How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Eight young persons have so much justified rage from the cruelties of American capitalism that they find the best course of action to blow up an oil pipeline in West Texas. This movie is a meticulously planned scheme about how the photogenic gang of eight plans to commit their act of terrorism.
Less (Michael Jordan) is more in Ben Affleck’s Air
You don’t become the most dominant athlete (not basketball player) of your era without creating an incredible story along the way. The story of how Michael Jordan became the most marketable sports superstar before his rookie NBA season began is told in the new movie Air. If there’s anything Ben Affleck and screenwriter Alex Convery know, it’s that the story of Michael Jordan is best told the less Michael Jordan talks.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie is an impressive work of animation that will have you longing for a better Mario movie
The new Super Mario Bros. Movie is extremely cool to watch. The movie is fast-paced and the animation is seamless and the colors are vibrant, like playing a video game on an enormous TV. As it should be. A lot of money went into making this movie look cool. I wish for all of the money spent on the animation and top-tier voice talent, we got a better story. I’m not sure that matters, though.
Good acting saves A Good Person from itself
A Good Person, the newest movie from Zach Braff: director and writer, is melodrama through and through, for better or worse. It’s often manipulative, cloying, overly sentimental, and it leans heavily on cliche. It’s also saved by excellent performances by two leads.
Guy Ritchie is back with another fast-paced action flick in Operation Fortune
At any given point throughout the almost-two hour run time, I don’t think I could satisfactorily explain what exactly is going on. It’s a taut, fast-paced heist movie, but it can be hard to follow at times. I also don’t care. Last time Guy Ritchie and Jason Statham teamed up, in 2021, I wrote, “I’m a simple man and sometimes I just need to watch Jason Statham beat the shit out of some bad guys. Ya know?” Nothing has changed: I got what I wanted then, and I’m getting what I want now.
Cocaine Bear is exactly what you think it is
It’s an unlikely (and quite disturbing) story and now it’s the starting point for a new movie, called, appropriately enough, Cocaine Bear. The plot of this movie (uhh) bears little resemblance to the history, and that’s kind of the point. It’s a meme movie, not a biopic, and every generation gets the Snakes on a Plane it deserves.
Tom Brady is a loathsome, arrogant, cheating weasel, but 80 for Brady is very funny
The first time I saw a trailer for the new movie 80 for Brady, about four of the world’s most cherished legendary actresses scheming to watch Tom Brady in the Super Bowl, I thought it was a blatant example of elder abuse. If anyone has earned the right not to play Tom Brady fans, it’s Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno, and Sally Field. Yet somehow here we are.
A Man Called Otto: The Life and Times of the World’s Grumpiest Man
I think everyone knows someone who could be called a “creature of habit,” someone who finds comfort in a daily routine, eating the same meals, doing the same chores, like clockwork. But I don’t think many people know someone like Area Man Otto Anderson.