Happy Gilmore 2 is an admirably okay legacy sequel
Happy Madison Productions’ cynically produced continuation of a story which concluded 29 years ago fails to enrich the original, but its effect is ultimately harmless.
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Your personal guide to good opinions about movies.
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Why does The Shawshank Redemption resonate so much?
Since its release in 1994, the film’s place in the popular consciousness has never shown any signs of fading away.
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Scream takes advantage of its audience’s movie trope psychosis
Kevin Williamson’s screenplay uses your familiarity with the horror genre against you, with help from Wes Craven’s master craftmanship.
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Apocalypse Now and the cost of imperialism
Coppola’s detached, nihilistic opus somehow accepts the idea that American soldiers suffered the worst during the War in Vietnam.
Hard Eight, a prodigious 26-year-old’s homage to the wizened masters of the past
The movie offering the most insight into Paul Thomas Anderson’s whole career is also his first.
Deadpool & Wolverine is the safest possible version of itself
Shawn Levy’s latest collaboration with Ryan Reynolds is not an irreverent mockery of Marvel, but a redressing of what to expect from multiverse gruel.
Dead Poets Society and its fake rebellion
Opposition to authority in Peter Weir’s coming-of-age dramedy consists of the kind of life advice that should remain on Hallmark cards.
Aesthetic politics in The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness
Miyazaki’s reckoning with beauty and fascism is depicted with more depth in this documentary than his own The Wind Rises.
Obligatory praise for 2001
Kubrick’s canonized magnum opus spells great and terrible things for the future which humanity is building for itself.
Hollywood fascism and Barton Fink
The Coens portray various forms of disingenuous malice within the American entertainment industry through two powerhouse lead performances.
Night is Short, Walk On Girl is a pleasant nightmare movie
Plot synopsis has never been more irrelevant than with Masaaki Yuasa’s colours-and-shapes masterpiece.
The Batman finally makes it cool to be dark and gritty
Armed with an almost monochromatic flame colour palette and the dulcet tones of Kurt Cobain, Matt Reeves’ take on a despondent Gotham is a rousing spectacle.
Jacques Tati inimitably satirizes the waste of industrialism in PlayTime
Sound and dimension are used to their fullest extent to disorient Monsieur Hulot, as well as the audience, in the intricate metropolis of this macroscopic comedy.
Brazil and the capitalist hellscape that it shamelessly mocks
Through astounding spectacle, Terry Gilliam projects his truly original, dystopian nightmares to the screen.
We must laugh at Dr. Strangelove to avoid crying for it
Kubrick directs a darkly comic paranoid farce about humanity’s impending nuclear annihilation at the hands of military bureaucracy.
A Few Good Men and the Sorkin problem
Rob Reiner directs this courtroom drama with eager intensity, yet the screenplay misfires when faced with opportunities to challenge American patriotism.
The image and Perfect Blue
Satoshi Kon uses his powers of composition to confront his audience with the horrors of an industry that destroys women’s lives.
I can appreciate No Way Home’s carnival of IP exhibitionism
For a movie produced solely to earn cheap applause from tirelessly nostalgic audiences, it’s not half-bad.