More melancholy, less fizzy but still a good time. By Alan Hurst (**1/2) I know. The first Mamma Mia! (2008) was not a good film. Shots didn’t match, the songs were shoehorned into in places that didn’t always make sense and the plot had holes to spare. But it was fun, it was pretty and…
By John H. Foote (****) Released earlier in the year to strong reviews and great worldwide box office, Ready Player One (2018) was an awe-inspiring movie which drew on the last thirty years of pop culture, bringing them to vivid life in a mysterious virtual world called the Oasis. Thus far this year, this might…
By John H. Foote (****) Finally, of the great films about the war in Vietnam comes to Blu Ray! One of the best films of Brian De Palma, a brilliant director makes its way to Blu Ray, to be seen as he intended. Ten years after Apocalypse Now (1979) rolled on movie screens, the definitive…
By John H. Foote Skyscraper is like a piece of cotton candy, tasty, even exciting, but it melts fast and you forget about it until the next time. Kind of a merging of Die Hard (1988) with The Towering Inferno (1975) it is, surprise an action thriller loaded with huge action sequences, great visual effects,…
By John H. Foote (****) Released in March, this exceptionally original horror film did very well at the box office and with film critics who praised the taut, tight direction of actor John Krasinski, and the performances of the entire cast. The opening moments invite us into this world, earth, but something has happened. The…
By Nick Maylor While Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) was released after Avengers: Infinity War (2018), the film’s plot largely deals with the fallout of Captain America: Civil War (2016) as it pertains to Scott Lang’s situation. Lang (Paul Rudd) is under house arrest due to his involvement in the Avengers battle in Germany (as…
Rumble Fish (1983) Criterion Special Edition Blu Ray (****) By John H. Foote Smarting from the critical bashing he took on One from the Heart (1982), Francis Ford Coppola took the advice of a teenaged fan and read The Outsiders, then immediately bought the rights to it for a film. On the heels of The…
By John H. Foote This might be the biggest surprise of the summer, that this sequel to the superb Sicario (2015) is as good as it is. The previous film, directed by Denis Villeneuve was a superb study of drug trafficking across the Mexican border, where US agents routinely encounter major Mexican cartels and their…
By John H. Foote The Incredibles (2004) now fourteen years old, remains among the greatest films of the decade, easily among the top three Pixar films ever made. In addition, it stands among the finest of the super hero genre, which in 2004 had yet to explode to the extent it has in 2018. Neither…
By John H. Foote A couple of years ago Alex Garland gave us his excellent science fiction thriller Ex Machina (2014), a thriller that was far better than perhaps it had any right to be. Confident, even brash behind the camera Garland has done it again, even more so, with his new film Annihilation, which…