Review: “Blue Beetle”

A bright young man unexpectedly binds with a mutant insect that grants him superhuman abilities and makes him a target of some bad people who would rather weaponize his powers. That sounds like I’m recounting the origins of the seemingly never-ending series of Spider-man movies, but it’s actually the premise of Blue Beetle, the newest […]

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: “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: “The Little Mermaid” (2023)

It all started around 2010. In the aftermath of the studio’s return to animated princess stories with The Princess and the Frog and on the heels of the release of their next one, Tangled, then-Walt Disney Animation Studios chief creative officer John Lasseter stated that the storied animation house—the bulk of whose legacy rests on […]

Review: “Fast X”

Nine movies and a trilogy? That’s the direction the Fast and Furious franchise is turning toward, as it begins heading down the long road to wrapping up the series that began 22 years ago as a thriller about street racing. We’ve heard this before; the series’ supposed tenth and final film was soon announced to […]

Review: “Bodies Bodies Bodies”

“Bodies Bodies Bodies,” director Halina Reijn’s Gen-Z satire clothed in trappings of a whodunnit from a story by Kristen Roupenian and screenplay by Sarah DeLappe, opens on a tender note. The camera caresses young couple Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and their girlfriend Bee (Maria Bakalova) as they caress each other, Sophie even going so far as […]

Review: “Prey”

This weekend, I was really jonesing to watch “Prey,” director Dan Trachtenberg’s prequel to/reboot of the “Predator” franchise featuring a female Comanche warrior as the main protagonist that was released on Hulu last Friday. And then I realized something: I actually hadn’t seen a “Predator” movie before. Not any of the sequels or Alien team-ups, […]

Review: “Bullet Train”

The Shinkansen, or bullet train, is a network of railway lines in Japan that connect areas across the country to Tokyo, and can reach operating speeds of up to 200 miles per hour. The pacing of the movie “Bullet Train,” set on one of these commuter trains, is about as fast, but far less focused. […]

Review: “Nope”

I will cast abominable filth upon you, make you vile, and make you a spectacle. Writer and director Jordan Peele opens his third feature film, “Nope,” with that verse from the Bible’s Book of Nahum, effectively laying out the movie we are about to see. For spectacle is what “Nope” is all about, although not […]

Review: “Thor: Love and Thunder”

With 2017’s “Thor: Ragnarok,” director Taika Waititi injected new life into what had otherwise become the dullest standalone character series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He made it more colorful, brought a wacky sense of humor to the proceedings, surrounded the lead characters with delightfully weird supporting players, and allowed star Chris Hemsworth to cultivate […]