The Oscars were weird this year. I mean, they’re always baffling for at least a few minutes, but this year seemed especially frontloaded with the strangeness. There were several deserving winners, but there were also such terrible choices as to completely cheapen what came before. Here are a few of the good, the bad and […]
Film
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Welcome to the Machine
Alita prays audiences want a sequel
This has to stop. “Alita: Battle Angel” is the second theatrical film I’ve seen this year that does something that a decade ago would have been unthinkable. “Alita” is about a cyborg with a human brain that teams up with a doctor of cybernetics and a boy she has a crush on to make their […]
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May the Source Be With You
February edition
Ahhh, February. The month in which folks in relationships remind me how blissfully happy they are on Instagram, while my mom reminds me that there’s still someone special out there for me by once again being the only one to send me a Valentine. I also try to celebrate February’s Black History Month by focusing […]
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Favourite Liaisons
Best Picture of the Year about Queen Anne, not Queen band
Hell hath no fury… Scorned women abound in a darkly comic period piece about Anne, Queen of Great Britain (with Olivia Colman, a shoo-in for the Oscar win) and her closest confidante, Sarah, the Duchess of Marlborough (a chilling Rachel Weisz). But really, “The Favourite” is about best friends Anne and Sarah, and the woman […]
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The Changing of the Old, White Guard
Oscars not as white; still quite male
I’m not sure if you noticed, but the Oscars are more interesting now than ever before. In 2012, The New York Times did a study on the demographic breakdown of voters among the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, with all 5,100+ members questioned. At 94 percent white, 77 percent male and 54 percent […]
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We Could Be Heroes
“Glass” finds the extraordinary in the ordinary
I‘m not sure there will be a weirder studio movie this year than M. Night Shyamalan’s “Glass.” One viewing doesn’t seem like remotely enough to get to the bottom of the deeply strange little movie that acts as a sequel to not only 2016’s surprise hit “Split,” but also 2000’s financial failure “Unbreakable.” Not too […]
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May the Source Be with You
New year edition
Holy heck, everyone! Another year has come and gone and here we are to share it with one another. It’s 2019, which is the year “Blade Runner” took place, so I guess we’re lucky we don’t live in a dystopian nightmare, but we also don’t have flying cars which is somewhat of a disappointment. Podcasts […]
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Almost a Movie
Escape Room Does the Unforgivable
Every January, the studios frontload the movies they think are either hot garbage or that won’t make them any money. Usually, that first week of the new year gives us the worst horror and action movies we’ll see for the next 12 months. Every once in a while a great little movie will sneak in […]
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Dawn Wall is a Delight for Doc Lovers
Friday screening is free for BendFilm members
Anyone who loves documentary films knows this: the subject doesn’t really matter. The heart of a great documentary transcends its subject, and “The Dawn Wall” is no exception. BendFilm is bringing this film back to The Tower Theatre on Jan. 11, and it’s free for BendFilm members. “The Dawn Wall” tells the story of Tommy […]
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More Than Meets the Eye
Bumblebee has heart AND explosions
Have we reached a place in society where we can admit the “Transformers” movies are garbage? Look, each one of the five (FIVE?!?) movies has something to offer, whether it’s watching Shia LaBEEEF slowly losing his mind on camera, T.J. Miller getting burned to ashes in the fourth one, Chicago getting systematically destroyed in the […]