Twenty-five years and four films later, Hollywood is still trying to recapture the magic of the original Jurassic Park. The latest effort, Fallen Kingdom, the follow-up to 2015's Jurassic World, comes courtesy of director J.A. Bayona, who, to his credit, delivers more memorable images than his predecessor. But can his…
In a way, The Catcher Was A Spy is the perfect star vehicle for Paul Rudd, who built his career on playing (and parodying) the kind of smarmy guy who can convince anyone of anything with a flash of his perfect teeth. That’s also one of the key assets pro baseball player-turned-secret agent Moe Berg (Rudd) brought to…
Based on the biographical book of the same name, The Catcher Was A Spy tells the story of Major League Baseball veteran Moe Berg who joined the Office Of Strategic Services as a spy in the World War II. At the premiere of the film, we spoke with director Ben Lewin about his interest in the project and his love of…
The American Dream is a conceit that’s woven into the fabric of the country: Anyone can come to the U.S., and through hard work and diligence, accomplish anything they set out to do. It’s also almost a complete fabrication, as evidenced by the fact that the majority of the wealth in this country is controlled by an…
“Revisionist Western” has become a redundant distinction. After all, we live in an age when the very few Westerns that still get made are almost all postmodern in outlook—challenging this once-dominant genre’s most romantic clichés, depicting frontier life with unsparing historical accuracy, pushing back against the…
As its protagonist, the ex-con Cristiano (Aristides de Sousa), roves from job to job in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, João Dumans and Affonso Uchoa’s Araby lingers at the threshold of one story after another. The point (both social and existential) is that the thresholds remain uncrossed, and that his life is…
Toward the beginning of Boundaries, beleaguered single mom Laura (Vera Farmiga), her shiftless father Jack (Christopher Plummer), and her oddball teenage son, Henry (Lewis MacDougall), set off on a multi-state West Coast road trip in Jack’s old Rolls-Royce. An hour into the journey, they carelessly run out of gas.…
Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases or premieres, or occasionally our own inscrutable whims. With the remake of the blaxploitation classic Super Fly opening in theaters this week, we’re looking back on the genre’s 1970s heyday.
Mob boss John Gotti—dubbed the “Teflon Don” after repeatedly being acquitted of crimes that he’d obviously committed—often sported a knowing smirk in public, taking evident pleasure in having literally gotten away with murder. Precious little of that mocking arrogance turns up in Gotti, a weirdly fawning biopic…
Guileless charisma is the main weapon in Alden Ehrenreich’s holster. It’s why he was perfect as the blissfully ignorant singing cowboy of Hail, Caesar!, but also, perhaps, why he couldn’t quite disappear into Han Solo: There’s no hint of outlaw amorality—of anything other than boyish magnetism, really—behind his sly…
Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases or premieres, or occasionally our own inscrutable whims. With the remake of the blaxploitation classic Super Fly opening in theaters this week, we’re looking back on the genre’s 1970s heyday.Â
Most comedies about men stubbornly refusing to act their age are actually stealth lectures: Fun is fun, they’ll grant, before going on to insist that sorry, you really do have to grow up eventually. Tag begs to differ. This is a comedy that says you never have to totally grow up, so long as you occasionally, literally…
The original Super Fly (1972) is a film best remembered for its soulful soundtrack, its peacocking style, and its ostentatious displays of ’70s wealth, all cornerstones of a particularly flashy breed of hip-hop music video. And the best parts of the SuperFly remake resemble one of those videos, utilizing Director X.’s…
Early into Brad Bird’s Incredibles 2, Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) races down the gridlocked streets of a Space Age metropolis on a custom-built motorcycle: flinging the bike in and out of tight traffic, stretching her impossibly malleable limbs around the sleek surfaces of a runaway maglev train. One of several dazzling…
Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases or premieres, or occasionally our own inscrutable whims. With the remake of the blaxploitation classic Super Fly opening in theaters this week, we’re looking back on the genre’s 1970s heyday.Â
Ocean’s 8, the all-female heist film with Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett leading a truly magnificent cast, opened this weekend to middling reviews—our own Ignatiy Vishnevetsky called it “more knock-off than spin-off,” giving it a C and calling Gary Ross’ direction “undexterous.” Many women on The A.V. Club staff…
Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases or premieres, or occasionally our own inscrutable whims. With the remake of the blaxploitation classic Super Fly opening in theaters this week, we’re looking back on the genre’s 1970s heyday.
Spoiler Space offers thoughts on, and a place to discuss, the plot points we can’t reveal in our official reviews. Fair warning: Major plot points for Hereditary are revealed below.
Does Hereditary live up to the hype? Or is its scariness a matter of personal taste? On this edition of Film Club, A.V. Club film editor A.A. Dowd (who has been raving about the movie since the beginning of the year) and staff critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky sit down to discuss the Sundance horror sensation, which gives…
Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases or premieres, or occasionally our own inscrutable whims. With the Sundance sensation Hereditary opening in theaters this week, we’re taking a look at other movies that make our skin crawl.
