The Conjuring: Last Rites is an effective if unsurprising concluding entry to this highly successful horror franchise. It follows the demonic possession playbook to the letter and manages to be creepy, if not scary. If anything, it sets the table for the upcoming Halloween season. Mildly Recommended. Continue reading The Conjuring: Last Rites
Married couples going at each other has been a reliable source of laughs for as long as I can remember. The Roepers on Three’s Company. The Bundys on Married with Children. The Barones on Everyone Loves Raymond. When you put two actors who can deliver zingers with deadly precision together, it’s comedic gold. Which is probably what interested Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman in The Roses, who play the eponymous warring couple in addition to being executive producers. They knew how much fun they would have with this material, and that we’d enjoy watching them tear each other to shreds. They were right.
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My journey with Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird didn’t begin in high school, where students typically become acquainted with it. Instead, it began with an article published in the Washington Post on November 3, 2023, titled “Teachers tried to dump ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ The blowback was fierce.” As someone who typically reads classic literature, I was curious why anyone would want to take Mockingbird out of the required curriculum. The novel, first published in 1960, has been considered as one of the great works of English literature since it was published. Why would educators want to pretend it no longer exists?
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Back in 2021, Nobody introduced the novel concept of seeing Bob Odenkirk play a violent action hero. That incongruity worked surprisingly well, so it’s no surprise that a sequel would be forthcoming. Nobody 2 picks up where the last one left off, with Odenkirk’s Hutch trying to be a family man while simultaneously working off his debts by way of dangerous assignments from his government handler. While the movie has the same violent action sequences that gave the first one such a kick, it lacks the angry verve that helped the original rise above similar punch-fests.
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The fact that Weapons begins with its most haunting images tells you something about what writer-director Zach Cregger has in store for us. The movie is ostensibly about seventeen children who disappeared at the same time, but Cregger’s ambitions extend beyond that. Although Weapons is a horror movie, it’s also surprisingly insightful in what it says about how tragedy affects us, the risks associated with everyday human kindness and the lonely plight of victimized children. And on top of all that, it’s very funny. Weapons is a big canvas horror movie that takes big swings and connects every time.
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When you’ve played the villain your entire life, it takes more than a single good deed to change perceptions. That’s the quandary these Bad Guys find themselves in. They bought into the whole tail wagging thing last time around and used their talents to do a whopper of a good deed, but their past transgressions are still etched within everyone’s memory. Did they make the right decision in breaking good? Or should they revert back to what everyone still holds against them? The Bad Guys 2 shows that it takes time, hard work and believing in yourself to make that happen. I’m not sure if this movie’s target audience will appreciate the philosophical argument discussion that’s happening alongside the slapstick and chaos, but their parents can explain it to them later, I suppose.
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When Liam Neeson agreed to star in The Naked Gun, he knew he had big shoes to fill. If you’ve seen the previous movies in this franchise, you probably heard those words in the voice of leading man Leslie Nielson, a dramatic actor who quickly mastered the art of the deadpan delivery. You may also have envisioned the 6’ 4” Neeson stumbling around in a pair of noisy clown shoes. That’s the challenge with following up one of the greatest comedies ever made, filling those iconic shoes. While Neeson is up to the challenge and the movie is funny, it’s not in the same league of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker films from the Eighties and early Nineties.
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Fantastic Four: First Steps is a fun joy ride, with memorable characters, a wonderful production design and exciting action sequences. One of the best science fiction films in years. Recommended. Continue reading Fantastic Four: First Steps
Eddington may represent a first for cinema, a mainstream movie making light of a modern pandemic. To my knowledge, there hasn’t been a humorous take on SARS, Ebola, the opioid crisis or AIDS. This isn’t to say that such a movie couldn’t have been made. As George Carlin once noted, there’s no topic that’s off-limits when it comes to comedy. However, using a traumatic event like the Covid pandemic as the source of laughs requires a take no prisoners approach, no matter how insensitive it may be perceived. That’s the fundamental problem with Eddington, which is too selective in the targets and too gentile in how it handles what it does take aim at. The movie is timid where it needed to be ruthless, circuitous when it should have been forthright.
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Superman is a lot. Stuffed with characters and subplots, the movie takes time getting into a rhythm. But when it does, it’s a strange, wild ride. Writer-director James Gunn’s film honors Superman’s roots while taking him in wonderfully weird new directions. For the first time in years, I cared about Superman and wanted to see what happens next. Recommended. Continue reading Superman (2025)
Detroit Cineaste 