Dedicated to movie nerdom, nostalgia, and escape. In the late 90s, I worked at Blockbuster Video where they let me take home two free movies a day. I caught up on the classics and reviewed theatrical releases for Denver 'burbs newspapers and magazines. Today, while raising two young, beautiful daughters with my amazing wife, I look forward to anything rated R and not Bluey. Comments and dialogue encouraged!
Commendably adapted or blasphemous to Mary Shelley, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is a movie — and a fair one at that. Skies hang ominously over a wet, bone-chilling landscape where the infamous creature doesn’t stop its rampage, as if It Follows dipped its toes into the 18th century. Del Toro’s obsession with flesh rekindles echoes of The Fly and Hellraiser,... Continue Reading →
One Battle After Another is a daring genre-bender — unmarketable by Hollywood standards — that demands to be seen in theaters for its subtle audacity and monstrous vision. That vision is Paul Thomas Anderson’s, and he has outdone himself again. Magnolia was a chapter in my life. That film cracked something open in me back in 1999 — a... Continue Reading →
I can’t think of a roller coaster or haunted house attraction that made me gulp, laugh, and scream more than watching Weapons in the theater. The horror trope has broken wide open this year, and it is a shame more than half the country would rather go on the merry-go-round. Starting with the grim premise... Continue Reading →
From the 80s to the 2020s, there is always a time and need for imbecile slapstick. Brainless to offensive, the gags levitate the belly to chuckles we once released as children. My dad raised me on Airplane! and Naked Gun, so who better to watch this reboot than with him. “Reboot” might be this relentless... Continue Reading →
If Ari Aster made a better second half to Midsommar, his take on toxic codependency would top them all. Unfortunately, his setup for relational imprisonment fell not just for gimmick but worse—pretentiousness. The cinematic potential for unhealthy emotional reliance is uncanny. Did you ever see Barfly, Fatal Attraction, or Blue Valentine? Funny. Frightening. Funereal. Add a body horror component to the... Continue Reading →
Brad Pitt swoons and the cars go fast, but the entertainment value runs out of gas at the 156-minute finish line. As per mind-numbingly usual, Hollywood takes a user-friendly summer blockbuster formula and bloats it. The washed-up-veteran-mentoring-the-cocky-rookie story works well on the racetrack, and actors Pitt, Javier Bardem, and Damson Idris divvy the testosterone respectfully.... Continue Reading →
Only Director Danny Boyle could resuscitate the “zombie”/infected trope with on-brand, Brit pop-accompanied flare. Blasting electronica to slo-mo shots of arrows piercing through ghastly, virus-ridden monsters, it’s as if the MTV music video married the modern video game. (It’s an added trivia perk that the whole thing was shot on an iPhone.) Yes, the Last of... Continue Reading →
No matter how much this live-action interpretation tries to appeal to grownup sensibility and kiddos who adore fuzzy creatures, there is a visual and emotional discrepancy between the human acting and CGI-renderings. You simply can’t have it both ways. Where six-year-old Maia Kealoha melts our hearts with a touching performance of Lilo in need of... Continue Reading →
You can make the argument that four of the 8-movie Mission: Impossible franchise are the best. What other 8-movie series can you say the same? After lighting the wick and cueing Lalo Schifrin's infamous introductory theme, I recently viewed Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and reranked my worst to best list to this tremendous... Continue Reading →
After dozens of viewings with my young daughters, I still come to the same conclusion: Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke are exceptional both in musicianship and laser point expression, the knack for lyrical metaphor is astounding, and the grownup sense of humor sneaks in seamlessly with the kiddo magic. The gigantic soundstage that envelops Cherry... Continue Reading →
Filmmaker Paul Schrader is renowned for taking us to the dingiest of places and introducing us to the gloomiest of people. By vicariously walking in the shoes of the taxi driver, raging middleweight boxer, and LA gigolo, we are challenged to sympathize with these pitiful characters. If anything, they are all seeking salvation. Because they... Continue Reading →
Utility filmmaker Steven Soderbergh presents a sleek spy thriller that lands on intrigue and misses on humor. Merciless British intelligence agents bite and claw through the dialogue (script credit to David Koepp), anamorphic cinematography protrudes the eye like an investigation lamp, and the jazzy drumkit score makes the 90 minutes breeze by. Like most Soderbergh... Continue Reading →
There’s not much out there right now, and I normally reserve horror flicks for October, but I had to see this rebooted Wolf Man for one reason and one reason only: Leigh Whannell. This is the director who pleasantly shocked me with another reboot in The Invisible Man in 2020. Whannell has a knack for... Continue Reading →
Played more like a rabid dog, cowering in the corner, Max Schreck’s interpretation of Nosferatu in 1922 is less a spectacle and more a freak of nature. The audience can’t help but feel fear turned to pity, as if the Phantom of the Opera becomes tangible reality, and the myth lingers in the fog. Robert... Continue Reading →
This year, I reached a wonderful point in my life when my daughters’ tutu dance parties in the family room and a few more visits to the gym superseded the necessity to write about movies. I’m good with this. I’m a firm believer in a life that evolves. If anything, time to simply watch a... Continue Reading →
A Christmas movie may include anything from Jesus Christ’s birth to family dysfunction around the dinner table. It can involve the magic of time travel and flying reindeer, or the lack of magic when life is lonely. Either way, the Christmas movie absolutely has to involve these two things: it has to take place during... Continue Reading →
As a native Coloradan, the smell of chlorine-infused sopapillas and sight of gorilla-trodden, orange-tiled floors are ingrained in my nostalgic brain. Casa Bonita was the most shameless, self-proclaimed spectacle in Denver, and the bad food was the beloved affirmation. My parents surprised my brothers and I with a limo ride to the pink wonder when... Continue Reading →
When art is attempted at such a self-possessed level, the only one who “gets it” is the artist. The rest of us lose $24. Filmmaker Michael Cimino’s 1980 passion project, Heaven’s Gate, had United Artists’ backing but lost $37 million to a 219-minute, sybaritic dream turned dustbowl. (RIP Kris Kristofferson.) Kevin Costner’s labor of love, The Postman (1997),... Continue Reading →
More video game-inspired than anything Alien franchise, this slimy mess replaces suspense with horror gimmick. I wonder if Director Fede Álvarez was trying to emulate that ‘90s Disney theatre-in-the-round attraction, Extraterrorestrial Alien Encounter. Did you ever experience that "ride" before they tore it down? Benjamin Wallfisch’s score is outlandish, the diction is garbled, Cailee Spaeny could use... Continue Reading →
My middle brother and I are sitting at the front row of the theatre with the screen just a few feet from our faces. Dad is rocking our one-year-old brother to sleep in the very back. It is 1988, and we are at the premiere of Beetlejuice at the now gone Southbridge Plaza 8 in... Continue Reading →
I never fully understood the push against gentrification until I saw gentrification push our two leads, Collin and Miles, into a corner. Whether it be at the ballpark, on TV, or in the movies, Oakland always seems to get pushed around, and in this case, the "Topher Grace/Neil Patrick Harris/Portlandia" transplants are as harmful as... Continue Reading →
Filmmaker Todd Haynes, the Douglas Sirk of postmodern melodrama, does it again with full blown intention—soap opera piano strikes included. There are necessary moments of campy humor, cringy graveness, and empathy on the fringe. Julianne Moore can melt a heart with her “I am naive” line, but there’s a yearning for more—something beyond the surface-level... Continue Reading →
Otherworldly. My favorite movies are otherworldly. An ethereal, synthesized score (infamous Maurice Jarre) accompanies an Amish family speaking German while walking through a green meadow in Pennsylvania, set in 1984—one year before the movie was produced. Before you can superficially label this one a typical 80s flick or police thriller, you are allured by the... Continue Reading →
Theatrical movie releases at the beginning of the year are predictably rancid. Only a colossal sandworm can devour the memory of The Beekeeper, Mean Girls, and Argylle. Thankfully, that worm arrived on February 29 to represent the second part of Director Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of the Dune universe. And, like his first effort nearly three... Continue Reading →
I certainly had more favorite movies to choose from this year than last. I'm not sure if you will agree with me, but the quality, diversity, and creativity went up a level in 2023. Still, I’m well aware of a current transformation I’m experiencing as the eccentric, polemic indies I once adored now annoy me,... Continue Reading →
Commendably rising above biopic banality and staying true to trademark nonlinearity tendencies, Writer/Director Christopher Nolan is only missing Hans Zimmer and an intermission. By alternating between black-and-white objective and the subjective in color, we experience a JFK-like injunction in which viewer interpretation is just as captivating as the controversial focus. In this case, we’re talking... Continue Reading →
A couple of days ago, my good friend, John, THE QUICK FLICK CRITIC, introduced me to the work of his friend, Derek Presley. Derek represents Independent Films|Muscular Puppy, and his latest indie hit, Tonic, is currently touring the film festival circuit. What an honor it was to watch and review a pre-release movie, and let... Continue Reading →
Any Role-Playing Game is an opportunity to walk vicariously in your alter ego’s shoes. (Heck, you can even tailor-make those shoes!) Whether played with dice on a tabletop or through a video game campaign, the RPG is an extension of self—your noblest or darkest self. Created in the early 70s, revived by Stranger Things pop... Continue Reading →
As some of you may know, I like to reserve my horror movies for the month of October. However, because I'm a sucker for the found footage genre, and January expectedly provides so little potential in theatrical selections, I had to give this critically acclaimed oddity a chance. I'm glad I did, and I'm grateful... Continue Reading →
If you're in need for some non-traditional Christmas movies during the holidays, below are a few of my favorites. Christmas is kinda included in these "kinda Christmas" movies: Home for the Holidays (1995) PG-13 It's Thanksgiving, and for Claudia (Holly Hunter), that means spending the weekend with her nosy mom, erratic brother (a very pre-Iron... Continue Reading →
Steven Spielberg is the movie industry’s ultimate protagonist, an influencer of the coming-of-age narrative, and an auteur of visual storytelling. Born into the Spielbergian suburbs of the 80s, I was blessed to grow up with his imagination and knack for child-height thrills. Little did I know that Spielberg instilled a tiny moviegoer in me in... Continue Reading →
Playwright Martin McDonagh writes with a knife to a rock, etching in truths that are hard for his characters to swallow. “I just don’t like you no more,” Colm Doherty tells his long-time friend and drinking buddy, Pádraic Súilleabháin. It is the stuff of absurd finality that one either laughs off as “only the Irish”... Continue Reading →
I always thought David Bowie, the person, was more intriguing than David Bowie, the musician. Something about the mystique of his androgynous alter persona and heavily costumed stagecraft usurped the controls from anything musicological or biographically revelatory. I think the very private "Mr. Stardust" himself would have liked it that way. Director Brett Morgen's Moonage... Continue Reading →
Idris Elba is the bomb. Whether he’s laundering money in “The Wire,” sporting an office cubicle suit while supervising Michael Scott, or lawyering it up in my favorite role of his in Molly’s Game (2017) —Elba exudes a Denzel Washington-like glide (his admitted influence) and the subdued empathy of a flawed saint. The role of... Continue Reading →
"We're the last people on earth who, on a daily basis, commission orchestral music. Without us, the orchestras might disappear..." -Hans Zimmer As a high school music teacher for 20 years and an avid moviegoer, I'm not sure how this one got away from me, but it showed up for free on my Prime Video... Continue Reading →
Watching a Baz Luhrmann movie is like sitting in front of a gold confetti-blasting canon. It’s style over substance, obnoxious over subtle — a nightmare for minimalist cinephiles like me. For anyone with a smidgen of an attention span, conveying a groundbreaking musician’s artistry on film just takes hitting a record button. Ever see last... Continue Reading →
An argument can be made that anything “Marvel Cinema Universe” is the same movie with 27 different titles. The formula never fails: Arrogant, grumpy, or emotionless hero + desensitizing CGI +/- obligatory love interest + forgettable villain who always possesses one less level of power = box office points. The DC Comics movies are no... Continue Reading →
I remember seeing the trailer for this movie last year and thinking, “This looks like an ode to late-twenties selfishness. Puke.” But, then I thought: Isn’t that exactly the time when someone should be selfish, especially when it comes to relationships? Isn’t that exactly the time we are supposed to date in person (or online),... Continue Reading →
The nuanced performance of Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana, the psychological interpretation of Director Pablo Larraín, and the mystery of what happens behind closed doors are exactly why the film medium was created in the first place: These components call for a multi-sensory experience of what could be safely read but valued more when felt.... Continue Reading →
I never finished Frank Herbert’s novel; David Lynch’s movie adaptation put me to sleep; and I read enough about Denis Villeneuve’s latest being all set up with no payoff. This all being said, I went into Dune with no expectations because I didn’t think I earned them. I left Dune wholly enthralled. I was and... Continue Reading →
Filmmaker Paul Schrader is renowned for taking us to the dingiest of places and introducing us to the gloomiest of people, and these are good reasons to watch the movies in the first place. Hopefully, we don’t want to be the imploding taxi driver, raging middleweight boxer, or guilt-ridden Calvinist priest, but it is surely... Continue Reading →
Reely Bernie 