Fresh off an Oscar nomination for co-writing Straight Outta Compton, Andrea Berloff has adapted a DC comic book series and turned it into easily one of the worst films of 2019. It all sounded promising enough. Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss as Farrah-haired, New York City 70s gangster wives who take over for... Continue Reading →
I grew up in a feminist household. My mother, resenting the limitations of the housewife role, enrolled in college, and woke up to the manipulative and damaging effects of the patriarchy. As the youngest of eight children whose parents divvied up family chores according to strict gender lines, I saw right through the ridiculous role-playing... Continue Reading →
As a movie lover, I’ve always been a little averse to writer/directors who only seem to reference other films in their work. I prefer to learn how they view things through the prism of their life experiences, not cinematic ones. Quentin Tarantino has certainly come across as a movie encyclopedia throughout his career, yet in... Continue Reading →
Ready for a hot take? I don’t always love animated films. Give me the crappy cut-out look of South Park or the gloriously fluid old school Looney Tunes shorts, but otherwise, I sometimes feel like my eyes are bleeding. I don’t mean to take anything away from the incredibly talented artisans who have brought so... Continue Reading →
I have a very rare and unusual relationship to A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. Long considered the gayest horror movie ever made, its homo panic subtext, which really just plays as text, feels unmistakable through a modern lens, but back then? It depends on who you ask. I should know. I was... Continue Reading →
The first thing you see in Lulu Wang’s touching, entertaining The Farewell is a card that reads, “Based On An Actual Lie”. Some of my favorite films and shows have explored the cost of lies, including All The President’s Men, Election, and the recent HBO miniseries Chernobyl. Wang’s film, while firmly in the popular entertainment... Continue Reading →
Right from the very beginning, writer/director Jim Jarmusch quickly established himself as the voice of deader than deadpan comedy. So what better genre for him to tackle this time out than an all-out zombie flick? Unfortunately, after years and years of undead stories, The Dead Don’t Die comes off as an amusing trifle at best,... Continue Reading →
On paper, Aubrey Plaza in a reboot of a 1988 horror classic sounds like a match made in that forbidding recess of hell I’d love to visit. Who’s darker? The deadpan goth chick or the murderous doll? I don’t know, but I couldn’t wait to find out…and then I saw the movie. Child’s Play gets... Continue Reading →
One of the advantages of hating all things superhero is that I don’t have to take part in those “bro-ey” discussions that usually begin with, “Dude, did you see what Thanos did to civilization? I can’t wait for the next 40 installments!” I tend to go blank when I’m with a gaggle of gays who... Continue Reading →
