Reviews

Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest stumbles, even as Denzel soars

Spike Lee’s “re-imagining” of Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low opens with Matthew Libateque’s glossy footage of New York City waking up in a golden sunrise reflected off shiny buildings. “Oh What A Beautiful Morning” from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! blasts over the soundtrack. It’s definitely a beautiful morning, but for record exec David King it will be anything but a beautiful day.

Reviews

Fantastic Four: First Steps is no giant leap for Marvelkind

The Fantastic Four has proven to be an oddly tricky team of superheroes to adapt. After decades languishing in the custody of other studios, Marvel finally got their “First Family” back after a pricey union with 20th Century Fox. Six years after those nuptials, the first MCU-produced family takes its first steps onto the big screen this weekend. With a fresh visual palette and a quaint sense of optimism, it’s a reliably agreeable re-introduction to a quartet that’s slated to be a key piece of Marvel’s latest phase of storytelling, that falls somewhere between Fantastic Snore and Fantastic Fine on the excitement-meter. 

Reviews

Ari Aster drags us back to pandemic hell with Eddington

Hard to believe it’s already been five years since the SARS-CoV-2 landed on our shores, and the response to the novel coronavirus shredded the hearts and minds of the United States into a toxic waste dump whose halflife remains unknown. Or at least that’s the feeling that one gets from watching Eddington, the latest from the twisted mind of horror auteur Ari Aster.  After a Cannes premiere approximately coinciding with the anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, it crashes into theaters this weekend like the Kool-Aid Man running through a brick wall, but more painfully.  

F1 the movie
Reviews

With F1 ® The Movie Apple Studios Starts their Engines

Joseph Kosinski continues to establish himself as the cinematic poet laureate of aging men and fast metal. Like Maverick before it, F1 The Movie sees a past-his-prime speed demon called back into service for one last shot to live out his dreams and save a massive enterprise. Both might be better interpreted as death reveries, but damn if it isn’t incredibly fun to coast alongside their heroes in the perpetual golden hour of wish fulfillment.