Tag: Pedro Pascal

Reviews

Fantastic Four: First Steps is no giant leap for Marvelkind

by Josh

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

by Josh

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.  

Reviews

Celine Song’s Materialists checks a lot of boxes, but is that enough?

by Josh

Fresh off the enormous success of Past Lives, Celine Song returns to the world of divided affections in Manhattan. Her first semi-autobiographical film concerned yearning across decades and missed connections across continents. It was among my favorite movies of 2023 , an Oscar nominee, and Seattle Film Critics Society’s Best Picture of the Year. Materialists, which finds her returning as both writer and director, is also loosely inspired by her own past life, bringing a more cynical eye to the complexity of beautiful people seeking soulmates from the comfortable side of the precipitous economic divide.