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There’s a moment early on in “Hell or High Water” in which two Texas Rangers are driving through the West Texas countryside headed to a crime scene. A large brushfire has taken control in the fields and a group of middle-aged cowboys are herding some cows across the road, away from the burning plains. When […]
Growing up, I thought it was really easy to make a horror movie. Just a few gallons of blood, a tall chap in a mask with something sharp, some screaming teenagers running around hoping for the best, and you’re good. Sadly, as I’ve gotten older I’ve needed a bit more from my horror films. Don’t […]
By the end of the year, there will most likely be at least three American animated films on my Best Films of 2016 list. “Finding Dory,” “Sausage Party,” “Kung Fu Panda 3,” “Zootopia” and now “Kubo and the Two Strings” have all been wonderfully entertaining works—and we still have a few more probable greats to […]
Back in the 1950s and 1960s, studios would release films specifically designated as “Morality Tales.” They were films that existed to show American audiences characters who were rough around the edges, given a choice between doing the right thing and the easy thing. As American filmmaking entered the glorious mid-’60s, characters took on the anti-hero […]
There is this running narrative in Disney films that seems to say that adventure in life is OK, but only for a bit. Then you have to cut your hair, go to school and stop wearing a loincloth all day and get prepared for student loans, mortgages and death. “Pete’s Dragon” isn’t necessarily trying to […]
I can picture it now. Seth Rogen is in a pitch meeting with Sony and Columbia Pictures and he’s got one hell of an idea. A hard R-rated animated comedy—in the vein of Pixar and Dreamworks animated films—about anthropomorphized food people coming to terms with their grisly fate. “Deadpool” proved that a “fun” movie can […]
“Hunt For the Wilderpeople” is one of those movies that you can only describe as lovely. The script, the tone and the performances all combine to make a movie that just soars by, content to be exactly what it is and nothing more. The film tells the story of Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison), an orphaned […]
The narrative being constructed by critics and fandom right now is that of a battle between DC Comics’ Extended Cinematic Universe (DCEU) and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). While Marvel’s started back in 2008 with the first “Iron Man” film and is plotted through 2019’s “Avengers: Infinity War – Part 2,” DC is still in […]
The Star Trek franchise has learned a valuable lesson in the three years since “Star Trek Into Darkness.” American and worldwide audiences want some fun in their science fiction blockbusters. There can be darkness and serious plot developments, but when everything comes across as joyless and dour, audiences and critics don’t respond quite as well. […]
“Swiss Army Man” came out of the Sundance Film Festival amid multiple walkouts, critically derided as Daniel Radcliffe’s farting corpse movie. I am happy to report that is EXACTLY what the movie is (among about two dozen other things) and it earns every second of its scatologically-obsessed running time. There are poops, farts, boners, masturbation […]
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