Tom Hanks finally breaks out of his slump (‘Pinocchio’, ‘Elvis’, ‘Finch’) for this touching and ultimately sweet drama about a grumpy old man who thinks everyone is an idiot and who decides (in a couple potentially triggering scenes) that he’s not meant for this world anymore. Hanks returns to form […]
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The Old Way
Nicolas Cage as menacing outlaw Colton Briggs in his first bona fide Western? Sign me up, right? Unfortunately, what we get pales in comparison to what could have been in this low-budget release that would have been direct-to-VHS back in the day. The basic, forgettable script by Carl Lucas and […]
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The Subtle Art of Not Giving a #@%!
After his wildly successful 2016 ‘self-help’ book, blogger and author Mark Manson brings his mantra of not sweating the small stuff to the big screen. Alas, the worthwhile message gets diluted in the presentation, which is essentially Manson giving a profane Ted Talk while mostly-nonsensical video plays over it. Without […]
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2022 In Movies: The Last Six Months
THE TOP 5 1. The Banshees of Inisherin As excellent a movie as you’re liable to find this year, this dark and terribly twisted tale of a friendship gone bad reunites ‘In Bruges’ stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson with writer-director Martin McDonagh. Exquisitely written and even more beautifully acted […]
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Joyride
The never-not-awesome Olivia Colman stars alongside newcomer Charlie Reid in this road-trippy seriocomedy about an Irish woman looking to give up her newborn baby but who, instead, crosses paths with a young boy and forms a heartfelt bond. It’s a warm and tender (and occasionally tear-jerky) coming-of-age tale that sucks […]
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Babylon
The latest from writer-director Damien Chazelle continues to make me wish he had quit after ‘Whiplash’. Sure, ‘First Man’ had its moments, but I’ll never come around on ‘La La Land’, despite the critical acclaim. ‘Babylon’, without a doubt, is the worst of the bunch—a messy and disjointed epic (clocking […]
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The Pale Blue Eye
Adapted and directed by Scott Cooper, the king of underappreciated cinema (2013’s ‘Out of the Furnace’, 2017’s ‘Hostiles’), this dark and twisted period mystery thriller stars the always-excellent Christian Bale as the investigator of a grisly murder at West Point in 1830, with the help of young cadet Edgar Allan […]
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Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
After eleven years, Shrek’s feline sidekick is back with a fun and largely whimsical (though too dark for very young eyes) adventure. From the creative team behind ‘The Croods: A New Age’, the film finds Puss (Antonio Banderas) down to the last of his nine lives and on the quest […]
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The Quiet Girl
Sparse on dialogue and even more sparse on veritable plot points, ‘An Cailín Ciúin’ (in its original Irish) is a bonafide multiple-tissue weepie about the heartbreaking things some children have to endure. A beautiful and subtly powerful film by writer-director Colm Bairéad, it stars young Catherine Clinch (in her debut) […]
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Avatar: The Way of Water
He still occasionally has a hard time writing dialogue that doesn’t sound like how adults think tweens speak, but damn, James Cameron can spin a yarn and, more importantly, create a true motion picture experience. An epic wonder of visual effects, this ambitious follow-up to the 2009 original brings us […]
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