Is anyone actually this nostalgic? Beneath the song and dance and snappy dialogue in the new Lion King is a feeling of resignation and inevitability. This reenactment—remake would imply that something is different from the beloved 1994 animated film—fails to explain to puzzled audiences why it exists at all. It’s not live action like Cinderella […]
The first question that will inevitably come up regarding Spider-Man: Far From Home is: How does it compare to the other screen portrayals that followed Sam Raimi’s landmark films? But let’s be honest, that train of thought goes nowhere useful. In terms of superhero movies and blockbusters in general, almost nothing is on par with […]
The conclusion of the X-Men franchise was never going to be great, but it didn’t have to be this bad. Back when the first film came out in 2000, the idea of a series of sustained and even quality films based on comic books had not solidified—Superman, Batman, and Blade all started strong but saw […]
As other non-Marvel cinematic universes either crumble (Dark Universe), or limp along on life support between occasional jolts of excitement (DCEU), the MonsterVerse has been slowly gaining momentum like a long-dormant giant. It started in 2014 with Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla, a technically solid [...]
There may be no better time for The Wife than this moment, in which the role of the male genius whose achievements came at the expense of unrecognized or exploited women is under scrutiny. (A few months in the doghouse, it seems, is plenty of time for celebrated entertainers to atone for [...]
There’s no one way to make a fact-based film, as 2018 has shown. From the satiric heights of The Death of Stalin to the self-parodic depths of Gotti, and with many major contenders to come (Bohemian Rhapsody, Beautiful Boy, Welcome To Marwen), all have different goals, from education, to poetic [...]