Hot off 2020’s “The Gentlemen,” Guy Ritchie is back with his latest, the suave, and sophisticated “Wrath of Man.” Jason Statham fills the definition of suave to a ‘T,’ or rather an ‘H.’ Ritchie gives us just enough to be curious about who ‘H’ is. Knowing Ritchie’s film library, anything less than explosive would be [...]
Mortal Kombat We live in an era of reboots and sequels where groups of disparate people come together for a common cause. Some have worked well (see “Logan” and “X-Men: First Class” as examples), while others have not worked out so well (see Josh Trank’s “Fantastic Four” as an example.) Don’t take that last suggestion [...]
Early on in “Godzilla vs. Kong,” there's a moment that sets the entire stage for the film – that of one of the most basic of human traits; an intrinsic and rather tacit gesture that symbolically defines the awesome and fierce battle to be laid in front of our eyes. Now, to put this into [...]
The difficulty of appreciating a film like “Raya and the Last Dragon” does not lie with the animation or the characters. Both are strong aspects of the film, which opens in theaters and on Disney Plus with Premier Access today. The challenge isn’t with the fact that I was not too fond of the movie. [...]
I could spend a moment using Chloé Zhao’s third feature, “Nomadland,” to reflect on my childhood and the yearning I have as an adult to hit the open road. However, I am starting a new year, something the main character reflects on in the film, and I won’t use this review to spend time reflecting [...]
I could start this review out with a cliché that somehow connects this soulless reviewer with a discussion on Disney-Pixar’s “Soul,” premiering on Disney Plus Christmas Day. However, I am not soulless. I might be a sourpuss, but I am not soulless. “Soul” is the story of Joe Gardner, voiced by Jamie Foxx. Joe is [...]
Alright, I’ll admit it. I’m a sucker for the disaster genre of films that peppered the 1970’s. In fact, “The Towering Inferno” turned 46 years old on December 14. Why is this important to Ric Roman Waugh’s “Greenland,” which hits VOD today? In a word, the Gerard Butler-starring vehicle fits the framework of such storied [...]
It’s a curious thing, Adam Mason’s “Songbird.” The film, a mid-budget thriller, would have been the type of film in the 1980s to have metaphorically represented the “what if?” if the U.S. and Russia had nuked each other, something I lived through. Films such as “Red Dawn” represented the “what if?” scenario quite effectively, but [...]
As we publish this, the 20th annual Phoenix Film Festival has donned its topcoat for the gents and the very best of evening gowns for the ladies as it starts its 11-day run. Nothing about this year’s festival is normal, though. Delayed by nine months, owing to the novel Coronavirus that has affected so many [...]
As the credits rolled on “The War with Grandpa,” I couldn’t help but smile. I enjoyed the antics between Robert De Niro, who plays Ed, and his grandson, Peter (Oakes Fegley). The antics rival "Home Alone" in their physicality, and the film is probably something that Disney would have made in the 1990s. That wasn’t [...]
