Stop if you’ve this one before: A preacher, a backup singer, a salesman and a foul-mouthed girl walk into a deserted hotel lobby in 1969. In a comedy, this would be the set-up of an elaborate joke. Bad Times at the El Royale takes the premise and unspools an unsatisfying noir thriller punctuated by extended violence […]
Tom Hardy plays a vicious Marvel comic book character. Bradley Cooper plays a washed-up country star singing the blues. A year ago, only one of these two lead performances seemed like a sure bet for box office and critical success. Then came the twist: While A Star is Born is on the edge of glory, Venom appears […]
What does the new wave of YA storytelling look like? I’m pleased to report that brooding vampires and bleak dystopian universes are MIA. Instead, the hard-hitting focus is on the struggle to find your voice amid a racially and socially charged American landscape. This is the backbone of The Hate U Give. Powerful and obviously […]
It took six male screenwriters to achieve the impossible: Make Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish seem like mere comedy mortals. Their first collaboration, Night School, is a mediocre disappointment that features plenty of banter but almost no bite. Though both stars have cut their teeth on, well, cutting humor, they go gooey here. They even […]
Everything happens for a reason. While that cliché may be comforting in theory — my heartbreak now will end in bliss later! — it’s lazy in a film. The self-aware Life Itself shoves this message down your throat along with a vat of sugar. Open at your own risk. The twist is that Dan Fogelman, creator of […]
It’s an unseasonably chilly Sunday evening at the Toronto International Film Festival. You could turn in early and take advantage of the festival’s most coveted commodity — that would be sleep — or you could go to the premiere of that glittery Lady Gaga musical, A Star Is Born. Or Jonah Hill’s directorial debut, Mid-90s. Or If Beale Street Could […]
THIS MOVIE HAS GONE OFF THE RAILS. I usually can’t decipher what I scribble in my little notebook during movie screenings. I’m ensconced in darkness, and my senses are overwhelmed by the images on the screen. During A Simple Favor, I wrote those words in big block letters and underlined them just to make sure […]
Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon. An American hero that risked his life to push space exploration into a new frontier. His tale of triumph and tragedy will be read in history books forever. So any big screen biography will surely be a vast, feel-good chest-thumper punctuated with grandiose speeches, […]
So this is what Lady Gaga looks like. Mousy shoulder-length brown hair protecting a delicate Picasso-shaped face. Fair complexion with a few faint freckles, defined nose, almond eyes. In the moving and exhilarating A Star Is Born, Bradley Cooper — making his directorial debut — likes to place the camera right on her face and zoom in. He […]
Summer is finally over, yesssss. You know what that means, right? Dwayne Johnson takes a vacation, while Ryan Gosling and Nicole Kidman get busy. We’ll see families come together and families break apart in ways that will gut the heart. (Want families devoured by a shark? That’s what The Meg was for.) Here’s your definitive, no […]