Action

“Full Metal Jacket”: a Brilliant Dark Vision of Man

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Duality, Contradiction, and Oxymoron in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket is often described as a film split in two: boot camp and battlefield, Parris Island and Vietnam, order and chaos. The split is real, but runs deeper than plot or structure. The film is built from duality and contradiction at … Read more

Avatar 2: The Way-off Water

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Avatar 2: The Way of Water is a three-hour Disney ride more than an actual film, and it feels as though the creators believe that’s plenty. Characters are drawn broadly and their motivations even more so. Plot elements are convenient, shoe-horned, and repetitious retreads of the first film, at least when they aren’t completely nonsensical. Themes are unchanged from the original, an afterthought at best. This is a movie that is more about the experience of watching it than the actual content of the movie.

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Hyper Sci-Fi Action Flick “Upgrade” Will Make You Laugh, Cheer, and Think (kinda)

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Leigh Whannell’s Upgrade is a wonderful and devilish little concoction of a film. At its center is Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green), an old-fashioned “works with his hands” kind of guy who restores old cars in a near-future where all of the cars drive themselves. After an accident leaves him a quadriplegic, one of his more … Read more

“Ready Player One” – the Definitive Guide Review

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In Ready Player One, in order to fit all the pop culture references, you’re gonna need a bigger boat. Steven Spielberg hovers over a mountain of movies, television shows, video games, and other ephemera of pop culture like so many mashed potatoes, obsessively sculpting them into something that only he can see (a good movie). … Read more

Taika Waititi’s Thor Sequel Shows Marvel is Best with a Unique Artist at the Helm

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The Thor franchise may be the most unbalanced in all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), home to what is perhaps the worst film in the whole MCU (Thor: The Dark World) as well as one of the stronger and more distinctive origin stories. Counting those two films and the Avengers movies, Thor: Ragnarok would … Read more

“Kingsman: The Golden Circle” Is the Saddest Kind of Sequel – One Sure it Doesn’t Have to Try

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Kingsman: The Golden Circle is the result of “getting the band back together” when the band broke up six months ago and everyone still hates each other so they just re-mix a few songs and release a “Greatest Hits” album. Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsmen: The Secret Service was a sleeper hit when it was released in … Read more

“War for the Planet of the Apes” Earns Another Victory for the Rebooted Franchise

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Remember how Rise of the Planet of the Apes was a James Franco-laden disaster with John Lithgow wandering around forgetting everything and apes rampaged over the Golden Gate bridge being attacked by police helicopters? How far we’ve come. This Planet of the Apes reboot may be one of the most artistically successful reboots of a … Read more

“Spider-Man: Homecoming” Does Whatever a Spider Can to Be Unique and Fun

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Though he has only a pair of independent films to his name, director Jon Watts (Clown, Cop Car) sure knows his way around a friendly neighborhood Spider-man.  The product of a team-up between Sony and Marvel Studios, Spider-man: Homecoming places the iconic webslinger in high school.  This choice dictates many aspects of the film, from … Read more

Music Breathes Beautiful Chaos into “Baby Driver”

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Very early in Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver, as Doc (Kevin Spacey) sketches out the plans to a heist on a chalkboard, he explains to his crew that the driver “Baby” (Ansel Elgort) has tinnitus and chooses to drown out the constant hum by listening to music.  Once he’s done with the obvious exposition, he puts … Read more

“The Mummy” Something Something Stupid “Wrapped” Pun

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There’s an off-hand moment early on in The Mummy when Egyptologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) draws attention to the importance of the discovery that she and Nick Mortion (Tom Cruise) have made by referring to the age of the sarcophagus:  5,000 years.  Trouble is, Wallis clearly mouths “three”, not “five”.  Oh well, ADR happens.  Maybe … Read more