Back to the Future is not about time travel. It is about the universe looking at the McFly family tree, sighing deeply, and sending an Appalachian Time Lord in a DeLorean to make sure the branches do not touch.
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Truth be told there’s a lot to like here, but unfortunately the movie kinda whiffs a lot more.
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I’m not sure about Penny Slot, but I’m pretty sure that Showgirls 2 is a gift from heaven. Doubly so for the woman who created it.
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Obsession offers a more existential terror by pulling no punches and giving no grace to its characters. But a predictable plot and messy construction can’t save the movie from itself.
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The Toy accidentally lets Richard Pryor be Richard Pryor, not the cleaned-up, family-friendly studio product Pryor, but the Pryor who understood that being a black man in America meant performing a version of yourself that kept the room comfortable while the actual work happened somewhere behind your eyes.
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Olivia Wilde’s The Invite angles for a meaningful excavation of a relationship on the rocks, but this marriage drama isn’t covering any new terrain.
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Hayley Kiyoko knows that not everyone watching Girls Like Girls was a teenage lesbian, but we all were teenagers at one point. We all dealt with a world that didn’t understand us in some way. And if we were lucky, at some point during those years we got to fall in love for the first time.
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In the mid-1990s, Japanese filmmaker Kaizo Hayashi took a crack at the Hammer character in a trilogy of offbeat crime capers.
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It’s as if Michael Sarnoski was so put off by the success of A Quiet Place: Day One that he decided to make a movie that is nearly impossible to enjoy.
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In Tuner, the narrative feature debut of co-writer/director Daniel Roher, Roher puts the risk-taking in the hands of the filmmakers in attempting to make the romantic plot the focus of the film, with the criminal storyline taking a backseat.
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Just like Nope gives us a thrilling finale and a printed image that means our heroes “succeeded,” The Drama gives us the messiest wedding possible while leaving us with an image of the happy couple in their wedding clothes ready to start their new life. They’re completely disheveled and all of their other relationships are in shambles, but they are ultimately still together.
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Rudd is charming, and Jonas is excellent. Power Ballad isn’t a bad film, but it doesn’t measure up to either the fine work of its leads or the best of Carney’s past work. It’s good for one go round.
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Layering imagery in its liquid prowling camera, inky shadows and foggy alleys, Terrible exudes effortless cool with splashes of modern ultraviolence, ending in a downbeat cliffhanger and a switch to eye-popping color for a preview of the sequels.
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Make no mistake, The Sheep Detectives, as a film, is strange. However, using sheep as a metaphor for groupthink versus individualism, commodification, and prejudice works.
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‘I’m here, I’m Homoti, get used to it.’
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Despite its oddball ending and workmanlike production, Riverbend is a noteworthy blend of drive-in shoot ‘em up and radical historical revisionism.
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The act of watching Alpha is better described as deflating and tedious, a filmmaker doing some impressive moves, but ultimately stumblingly to the finish line.
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Recently returning to theaters in Austin, Stop Making Sense is, 42 years on, still a masterpiece in austerity and obfuscated movement highlighting the ecstasy of performing in a live musical setting.
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The brilliance of James Van Der Beek’s performance shines brightest in the moments where the actor allows Rick’s mask of the golden boy to slip. The young actor makes each moment count, and thus demonstrates his Hollywood potential.
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Not every film needs to be built. Some films need to be survived. Help!!! is that kind of movie, and it earns every one of those three exclamation points.
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