Pillion (2025)
“It's not a bear movie, it's an otter movie!” a woman opined outside the theater after the early screening of Pillion. It's true: Alexander Skarsgård is too sleek to be
Crime 101 (2026)
Crime 101’s Los Angeles is one of contrasts. From the gorgeous, slowly turning opening shot of the city at night, we see a world of white billionaires collecting art by
Send Help (2026)
For the life of me, I couldn’t remember the name of this film before the screening. I was telling my partner I was going to see Safe Place… or was
Mercy (2026)
Let’s be honest here: a court system run by artificial intelligence doesn’t seem too far off. It’s easy to imagine AI companies approaching the legal system, pitching the benefits of
Greenland 2: Migration (2026)
I had been anticipating Greenland 2: Migration (or is it Greenland: Migration? The title sequence curiously drops the “2”) since the first trailers a few months ago. But gosh, a
Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025)
Early on in Jurassic World: Rebirth (aka Jurassic Park VII), we meet perhaps the most boring family ever---a dad, his two daughters, and the older girl's pothead boyfriend---sailing across the
F1: The Movie (2025)
In 2022, director Joseph Kosinski brought us the sequel we never knew we needed: Top Gun: Maverick. It was easily one of my favorite movies of the year (I may
Thunderbolts* (2025)
As the sturdy oak of the Avengers has been logged for all its worth, literally being referenced with a museum piece in this latest Marvel film (government villain Valentina Allegra
Sinners (2025)
It's early 1930s Jim Crow South and twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) have returned to their poor, small Mississippi town after years away. The
The Amateur (2025)
Charlie (Rami Malek) is a type of man that usually never gets to be an action hero. He's nerdy coder or decrypter (or something) at the CIA, literally working in
Anora (2024)
If Pretty Woman was a weirdly glossy whorish spin on Cinderella for the 1990s, Anora updates that spin for the 2020s by stripping away (so to speak) gauzy artifice for
Dìdi (弟弟) (2024)
Man, being a tween sucks. Whether you grew up in the era of social media, or in pre-historic times (like myself), the years just before high school can be brutal.
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
Already it seems like all Marvel movies are blender-made, as characters get rebooted, spun-off, and conveniently thrown into other multiverses and timelines so that even character deaths become meaningless. Deadpool,
Thelma (2024)
A friend of mine laughed when I called Thelma a slow-motion action movie, but it’s true! The biggest moment of nail-biting tension doesn’t involve a gun (though there is one), but
Drive-Away Dolls (2024)
The Coen Brothers, even with their occasional misfires, are a magic moviemaking duo. But in Ethan Coen's solo directorial debut, adapting a screenplay by his wife Tricia Cooke, he is
Sinners (2025)
It's early 1930s Jim Crow South and twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) have returned to their poor, small Mississippi town after years away. The
The Amateur (2025)
Charlie (Rami Malek) is a type of man that usually never gets to be an action hero. He's nerdy coder or decrypter (or something) at the CIA, literally working in
G20 (2025)
There’s something about G20 that reminds me of a good old-fashioned 90s popcorn action-flick. The substance is shallow, the characters are either cartoonishly noble or crazy-eyed bad, and the situations
Novocaine (2025)
Jack Quaid plays Nate Cain, a kind of dorky, buttoned-up middle-manager at a bank. He's a sweet but reserved young man who happens to be crushing hard on the new
Last Breath (2025)
Harrowing, ripped-from-the-headlines stories of survival are inherently cinematic. Extraordinary stories of heroic folks pulling together to save others, whether dozens of trapped miners, or in this case, a single diver
40 Acres (2025)
As much as I love me some good post-apocalyptic storytelling, whether it be zombies or spores or meteors causing the end of society as we know it, the dystopian horror
Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025)
Early on in Jurassic World: Rebirth (aka Jurassic Park VII), we meet perhaps the most boring family ever---a dad, his two daughters, and the older girl's pothead boyfriend---sailing across the
Elio (2025)
Elio (Yonas Kibreab) can't seem to fit in since his parents died. He butts heads with his Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña), a harried military officer who is doing the best
The Life of Chuck (2025)
Based on Stephen King's novella and adapted by Mike Flanagan, The Life of Chuck starts with Act 3 of 3. It's modern times, and a schoolteacher named Marty Anderson (Chiwetel
Captain America: Brave New World (2025)
There's a new President of the United States and he wants to create a legacy for the ages... despite his sketchy past that makes even those in his orbit tiptoe
The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)
The Last Voyage of the Demeter piqued my interest because it had two of my favorite genres in one: religious/supernatural horror and a tall-masted ship on a voyage of doom.
The Pope’s Exorcist (2023)
Now, as a non-believer, I unabashedly love the genre of religious horror. Show me someone possessed by a demon, or an evil flying angel, or an unfortunate victim getting thrown
The Boogeyman (2023)
Let me start by saying that this is a straight-up monster-in-the-closet movie. I'm not sure what "the mind of Stephen King" was conjuring in his short story The Boogeyman, but
Halloween Ends (2022)
Halloween Ends finds Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) living some semblance of the life she might have had if Michael Myers hadn’t murdered her closest friends and terrorized her town
Nope (2022)
There is a moment in Nope, Jorden Peele's latest in his surprising and very welcome career as a filmmaker: OJ (Daniel Kaluuya), a very mild-mannered rancher races home to find
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
I went in to Avatar: The Way of Water admittedly very cynical. Let's just put it this way: I kind of hated 2009's Avatar. I was annoyed by the silly,
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
In our previous chapter with Thor the Space Viking, director Taika Waititi (mercifully) unleashed Chris Hemsworth's untapped comedy skills, reviving the dullest Marvel series with probably the weirdest, and therefore
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
Peter Parker (Tom Holland) can't seem to catch a break. After all, he spent the entire last movie just wanting to tell a girl that he liked her on their
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022)
Starting off on a (very) dark note, the third film in the Fantastic Beasts series, The Secrets of Dumbledore, finds magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) going into the forest to
Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)
Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) is just trying to do her taxes. Swamped in handwritten receipts for her small business--a struggling laundromat that she runs with her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan)--Evelyn
The Housemaid (2025)
"You never let an attractive woman take a power position in your home." This is actually a quote from the 1992 pulp hit The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, one
Hamnet (2025)
An Oscar-winner for the lovely and introspective Nomadland, director Chloé Zhao is back in her wheelhouse with another visually lovely, emotionally intimate drama. Based on Maggie O'Farrell's novel of the
Sentimental Value (2025)
Sentimental Value starts with a narration of the history of a house, a gorgeous piece of Norwegian folk architecture that looks like a relic in modern Oslo. Generations of the
Nuremberg (2025)
Several Hollywood movies have been released in recent months that seem to serve as neon-arrow warnings to the American public. Superman warned of a tech genius using his influence and
I Wish You All the Best (2025)
What the world needs now are movies like I Wish You All the Best—gentle stories filled with kindness and acceptance, showing that society will not collapse when young people are
