Deadpool & Wolverine is something else. It’s a big mess of a movie, much of it entertaining, much of it tiresome. It throws so much at the wall, some of it sticks. It probably will delight a lot of Marvel fans. And even by my standards, it contains a lot of dick jokes.
Category: Reviews
Spin on a familiar story makes Twisters a stellar summer movie
A young and wild group of storm chasers lead by the enigmatic Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is on the hunt for a tornado in the famous tornado alley of Oklahoma. They aren’t just in it for the thrill, but to find a way of deconstructing the storms and in turn saving untold numbers of lives. On one of these ventures, they underestimate the power of the cyclone and Kate loses three of her best friends. Leap forward 5 years and she’s living comfortably at a desk job in NYC when the other survivor of her past life, Javi (Anthony Ramos) tries to pull her back in with the promise of taking up her mantel of saving lives once again.
With Fly Me to the Moon, ScarJo and Channing Tatum take romcoms to the final frontier
As I’m watching Fly Me to the Moon, the new ScarJo/Channing Tatum romcom, I imagined a bunch of hack-ish critics simultaneously thinking of how they’re going to fit “failure to launch” in their reviews. My prophecy was actualized. Still, the movie, while far from perfect, I quite enjoyed, much to my surprise.
Longlegs climbs high, stumbles precipitously
Structured into three acts with a tantalizingly withholding amuse bouche of a prologue, the vibes are immaculate. Frustratingly, the whole thing self-immolates in its final chapter and destroyed all the goodwill that it worked so hard to build. Early reactions seem far more forgiving than mine.
Maxxxine Serves up Girl Power Marinated in Gore and Grime
Maxxxine (2024 | USA | 104 minutes | Ti West) Maxxxine may be set in a Reagan-era Los Angeles that’s been buffed …
Desperation and luck drive the story in Escape
From the moment we meet him, Sergeant Lim Gyu-nam (Lee Jee-hoon) is desperate to find a way out of North Korea and into a seemingly promised land to the South. Planning for what seemed like years, he has his route mapped and a thought-out plan to escape while he’s still in the military with familiar surroundings and path out, but on the cusp of action things fell apart.
With Kinds of Kindness Yorgos Lanthimos delights in a triptych of sadness
My first reaction to Yorgos Lanthimos’s new absurdist black comedy anthology was that it was nice to see him getting weird again.
Copa 71, or how to memory hole an entire World Cup for 50 years
There’s something remarkable about the opening scene of Copa 71. Brandi Chastain, hero of the winning American team of the 1991 Women’s World Cup, is given a tablet and shown footage of the 1971 Copa tournament, a massive women’s soccer competition in Mexico City two decades earlier than the first official FIFA Women’s World Cup. She had no idea it even existed. I suspect many other diehard women’s sports fans didn’t either (I certainly didn’t).
Jeff Nichols revisits a rough and tumble motorcycle club in The Bikeriders
Taking inspiration from Danny Lyon’s iconic book of photography The Bikeriders, director Jeff Nichols uses his admiration for the images of mid-century motorcyclists as the basis for a fictionalized account of a Chicago-based motorcycle club.
June Squibb is an unlikely action star in Thelma
This caper starring June Squibb as a 93-year-old granny on a Cruise-inspired impossible mission to avenge her honor after being phone scammed & Fred Hechinger as underemployed Grandson of the Year might be the Most Sundance Movie of the fest: impeccably made, note-perfect, heartwarming comedy.