Review: “Haunted Mansion” (2023)

The time: October 2013. The place: Anaheim, California. The people: my roommates and friends who were, like me at the time, Disneyland cast members, whose appointed backstage tour of one of the theme park’s most storied attractions, the Haunted Mansion, was delayed due to a necessitated clean-up of a loved one’s ashes a family thought […]

Review: “Brother”

“Think on every step before you take it. Put it to memory, remember that the whole way up. And if you can’t use your memory right, you lose.” Francis (Aaron Pierre) utters those words to his younger brother Michael (Lamar Johnson) as they stand staring up at a transmission tower in their Scarborough, Toronto neighborhood. […]

Review: “Oppenheimer”

It’s a thorny subject, one usually entered into with reticence. That the United States military’s dropping of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 to end a war that was already effectively over was a horrid act is more of a fact than an opinion nowadays. Upwards of 200,000 […]

Review: “Barbie”

Everything is perfect in Barbieland. Barbie wakes up in the pink plastic confection that is her dream house, greets her friends, showers, and selects a stylish ensemble from her expansive wardrobe. She eats breakfast (a perfectly toasted waffle washed down with a glass of milk) before she goes about her day, which includes attending political […]

Review: “Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning Part One”

Tom Cruise is the 21st century’s Buster Keaton. That Cruise is one of the last true movie stars is certain: his name— and his outspoken devotion to cinema— alone drives audiences to movie theaters in droves, despite his often unsavory personal life that typically draws more fascination than ridicule. That first statement might provoke more […]

Review: “Joy Ride”

R-rated comedies are having a small—but not insignificant—moment right now. While that particular brand of raunchy movie seemed to be a regular staple of the mid-late 2000s theatrical scene, with movies like The Hangover (which spawned a trilogy) and Knocked Up, they’ve become increasingly rare, and when one does pop up every now and then, […]

Review: “L’immensità”

In Emanuele Crialese’s L’immensità, Andrew (Luana Giuliani) is a 12-year-old boy wresting with his gender identity. Born Adriana, his parents Felice (frequent Crialese collaborator Vincenzo Amato) and Clara (Penélope Cruz) still call him by that name, and address him as “young lady.” They aren’t exactly hostile, and yet, their inability to understand or, in the […]

Review: “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”

Indiana Jones has always been about the past. He is an archaeologist, after all, and his exploits, from the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark to the titular artifact of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, have always married the past with his present day, typically with a supernatural twist. But the […]

Review: “Asteroid City”

Asteroid City, population 87. You can stand in the middle of the highway that runs through it, turn 360 degrees, and absorb the town in its entirety. There’s the cozy roadside diner and neighboring auto shop. The motor court, with its orderly rows of neatly-appointed white cabins (except for Cabin #7, temporarily replaced by a […]

Review: “Elemental”

Elemental is that classic tale of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy makes grand heroic gesture to win girl back. I’d say that with their 27th feature film, Pixar Animation Studios put their own spin on the old romance trope, but they sort of don’t—except that the boy, in this case, is a being […]