Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone are back, six months after the release of their last (and worst) film, “Superintelligence.” Their latest work, Thunder Force, is a superhero comedy telling the story of best friends Lydia (McCarthy, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”) and Emily (Octavia Spencer, “The Shape of Water”), who become the superhero duo known…
Onward, the latest animated adventure from the studio that seemingly can do no wrong, Pixar, kinda does. It is a mediocre effort overall, but still a further reminder of the studio’s status as a master heartstring-tugger. In the end, that’s where the studio excels and the way Dan Scanlon, Jason Headley and Keith Bunin’s story…
A high school student’s essay discussing radical philosopher Frantz Fanon’s belief in the necessity of violence by oppressed people raises certain eyebrows in Nigerian director Julius Onah’s (“The Cloverfield Paradox”) thought-provoking but over-determined Luce, a drama about race that challenges us to impose our own expectations on the main character. Onah says that, “Every other…
While we know that some monsters are decidedly not lovable, the creature in Mexican director Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, like many humans who roam the planet, is more of a lonely outcast seeking connection than a life-threatening presence. Performed by Doug Jones (“The Bye Bye Man”) underneath all the prosthetics, this monster…
Mathematics and mathematicians may not appear to be the most dramatic material. Filmmakers seem aware of this potential failing, and thus produce subtle, nuanced and often very impressive films based around this topic, which end up being award contenders. Such is the case with Hidden Figures, for in the tradition of (Oscar winners) “Good Will…
Oh boy. There’s nothing quite as middling or eyebrow-raising as a belated sequel, is there? 2003’s “Bad Santa” was a morbid, distasteful, apathetic middle-finger to more warm and fuzzy, politically correct holiday ventures and I absolutely love it. Upon hearing that a sequel was finally coming I was excited, although I knew it could fall…
There is something satisfying about five thirty-something men going into an afternoon screening of an animated “children’s” film that features talking animals, and noting other audience members of a similar age. That was my experience of Zootopia (re-named “Zootropolis” in the UK), as myself and four friends of a similar age found ourselves in a…
