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The Life of Chuck September 8, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen The Life of Chuck had its World Premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Neon will release it in theaters on June 06, 2025. If you were challenged to envision a movie directed by Mike Flanagan adapted from a story by Stephen King, you’d most likely picture something bathed in darkness and horror. Of course, that’s not a hard guess to make based on the pair’s previous collaboration with Doctor Sleep in 2019. But The Life of Chuck is something totally different, with Flanagan describing it as a work of “making joy, instead of just taking it in” during his introductory speech at the world premiere screening within the famed Princess of Wales Theatre. There are still horror elements, but they revolve around the real-life horrors we face every day, such as regret, finding our purpose, and reconciling with those we love. We open on Act… Three? Yes, this story starts where it ends, which is at the end of the world and one person’s life. The decades of climate crisis warnings have been ignored, which means they are now a reality. Wildfires, droughts, and hurricanes are a daily occurrence. The news gets worse every day, progressively emboldening the argument over what’s the point of living on this planet anymore. The only people who seem to be having happy thoughts are the ones celebrating Charles Krantz. “39 great years! Thanks, Chuck!” is plastered on every billboard, commercial break, and bus station in town. So, who is this seemingly normal person getting so much special treatment at the prelude to the apocalypse? To answer that question, we have to keep going back. As narrator Nick Offerman tells us, Charles Krantz is a normal person who grew up to be an accountant. But that doesn’t mean he’s without the special qualities that make him an exceptional human being. A certain verse from Walt Whitman’s famous poem “Song of Myself” - “I am large, I contain multitudes” - is literally and metaphorically referenced multiple times. We are never just ourselves, containing bits and pieces of everyone and everything we’ve ever interacted with along our journey. It’s a heartwarming message from Flanagan and King, one that offers as much introspection within ourselves as it does for Charles. It’s a little simple for its own good, often being repeated by every character in their unique way. For Charles’ grandmother, that means dancing whenever the music sounds right. For his grandfather, it’s about using math to make the world a better place. A certain speech given by his grandfather will likely be used as an advertisement for every accounting department at college major orientations. The Life of Chuck reaches its peak relatively early in the second act. Chuck’s love of dance breaks out after years of repression, resulting in an infectiously high-energy display of exuberant movement. Flanagan further progresses his chops as a director, displaying that his knack for horror-related timing can be transferred to something much more subdued. The performances are all committed to the change of pace, even if a few of them don’t deliver on expectations. The ambition and drive to tell a story like this from people so famous for going in the opposite direction is more than enough to warrant taking the chance on it. There are more than a few individual moments where it seemingly comes together, but the cumulative whole always feels less than the sum of its parts. More Reviews A Minecraft Movie April 2, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Freaky Tales March 31, 2025 By: Tyler Banark The Friend March 28, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen William Tell September 5, 2024 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

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Missing Link April 22, 2019 By: Button Hunter Friesen Priding themselves on craftsmanship and hard work, Laika Studios has carved out a special spot in the modern animation industry. Their favoritism for stop-motion over computer effects has led to some dazzlingly authentic films such as Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings . The studio’s newest film, Missing Link , follows in the same high-quality footsteps laid down by its predecessors. The story begins in the early nineteenth century and introduces us to Sir Lionel Frost. He’s an explorer who longs to become part of the high society of “great men”. In order to gain entry to the club, Lionel must prove the existence of a mythical creature: The Sasquatch He immediately treks to the U.S. and finds the creature, who surprisingly has the ability to both write and speak. Lionel dubs the creature the name Mr. Link, playing off of the fact that he is the missing link between early and modern humanity. Link longs to be reunited with his Yeti cousins in the Himalayas, a trip Lionel agrees to partake in as long as he gets the proof he needs. Through their long and treacherous journey, the duo venture into unexplored areas within the world and within themselves. Laika Everyman and ParaNorman director Chris Butler stepped back into the chair for this film. Just like all Laika productions, the animation and set design within Missing Link are simply outstanding. The characters and the multitude of diverse sets are a marvel to look at and experience. Throughout the film, you get a genuine feeling of the unfathomable amount of hard work that each artist put in. Butler’s direction of the story is just as meritable as his handling of the animation. He treats the narrative like any other and doesn’t downplay any of it in order to cater to the younger audience. The emotions and themes are quite sophisticated and actually make you think about what you’re watching. It’s a tragic fact that only a few kid's films like this one deal with the tough subject matter, which is something I was reminded of when watching the mindless trailers that played in front of this film. One fault that can be mentioned about Butler is that his pacing is lightning-fast and tended to negate some of the more important character development that he had tirelessly worked for. Also serving as the sole writer, Butler does a decent job at telling a wholesome story with lasting themes. It becomes apparent that Butler never compromised his vision for kids as he doesn’t try too hard for jokes. He goes for quality over quantity as there aren’t as many funny moments as you would expect. This turns out to be a pleasant surprise and allows for the story to flow better without the need to constantly crack a joke. The main ingredient of the touching story is simplicity, which from time to time restricts the viewer from having a deep connection with the film. The main group of characters is decently constructed but just isn’t developed enough for us to get a sense of knowing them. This theme of underdevelopment is also illustrated in the rapidly paced plot that doesn’t seem to want to slow down and bask in the beauty. We’re always racing to the next destination or story element, leading to a rushed ending that doesn’t reach the emotional heights of the studio’s previous films. Laika films in the past tended to have lesser-known casts, but this time they went for a more star-studded lineup. Zach Galifianakis is excellent as Mr. Link. His soft and innocent voice perfectly embodies the character’s kind and lovable traits. Hugh Jackman is great as Lionel Frost. Jackman uses his macho voice for the initial scenes of his self-centered character but later gets to be more gentle as his character begins to mature. Zoe Saldana does her best as Adelina, an adventurous spirit that tags along with the pair. Unfortunately, Saldana doesn’t get a lot to do other than being the stereotypical girl voice of reason between two male characters (although it is not entirely clear what gender the beast is). While centrally a kid's movie, Missing Link tells a heartfelt story that can be enjoyed by all ages. It’s not the best quality from the always dependable Laika, but it is mesmerizing to watch and will send you home with a smile and a slight sense of wonder. More Reviews Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Author Name

Armageddon Time May 26, 2022 By: Button Hunter Friesen Armageddon Time had its World Premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. Focus Features will release it in theaters on October 28. In the words of Mugatu from Zoolander : “Directors making their own autobiographies, it’s so hot right now.” Of course, a regarded filmmaker telling their life story isn’t exactly a brand new concept. François Truffaut did it with The 400 Blows , and so did Federico Fellini with Amarcord . But just like skinny ties and baggy beanies, the fad went away for a while. That was until 2018, when Alfonso Cuarón made it cool again with Roma , which earned him a trio of Oscar statuettes, including Best Director. Now it’s become a genre itself, with directors churning out cine memoirs at a pace that rivals the MCU. There’s been Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast , Richard Linklater’s Apollo 10 1/2 , Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God , Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Bardo (I’m not going to spell out the whole title, it hasn’t earned that gesture yet), Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir films, and Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans . And now, after venturing out into the Amazon jungle for The Lost of Z and deep space for Ad Astra , writer/director James Gray returns home to Queens, New York for Armageddon Time . Apart from being a homecoming to the location that housed his first five films, Armageddon Time also serves as Gray’s return to the Croisette after almost a decade away. It’s his fifth time competing for the Palme d’Or, and, based on the quality of this film, I’d say it’s his best chance yet. Banks Repeta (in his first major role after appearances as younger versions of characters in The Devil All the Time and Uncle Frank ) is our stand-in for Gray as Paul Graff, a sixth-grader at PS-173 in 1980 Queens. He’s a gifted student, but not a very motivated one, which often leads him into trouble with his strict teacher Mr. Turkeltaub. One of his regular prankster cohorts is Johnny, the only black student in the class. Despite both of them often getting caught for the same thing, Johnny’s punishment always seems to be worse than Paul’s. It’s a fact that resonates with Paul, even if the concept of racism hasn’t fully formed within his head. But his parents don’t see the innocence in the situation and move him to an elite private school across town. It’s not hard to imagine Gray writing this story during the Trump presidency, especially since Donald’s father and sister, Fred, and Maryanne, play small roles in shaping Paul’s increasingly pessimistic worldview during his time at the seemingly all-white prep school. Gray’s bluntness is apparent as he traces how the casually elitist and racist children of the Reagan era grew up to embrace the 45th president, and how their children will likely do the same in a few decades. It sometimes comes as lecturing, but there’s a sweetly honest feel to it that makes it go down smoothly. Also lending to the emotional pull of the film is the grownup trio of Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong, and Anthony Hopkins. Hathaway is given the shorter end of the stick as Paul’s affectionate mother, but the actress makes up for her limited time with some moments of pathos. Strong, playing the more emotionally distant father that doesn’t hesitate to teach with his belt, also makes a strong impression, even if it sometimes feels as if he’s trying to do his best Ray Romano impression. It’s Hopkins who steals the show as the grandfather who fled Europe to escape Jewish persecution and find a better life in America. He’s always got a nugget of wisdom to spare, and a heart warm enough to start a fire in winter. The scenes between grandpa and grandson are a clear standout, especially one set in the park where the elder shares a touching monologue, which will surely be used as Hopkin’s Oscar clip come next year’s ceremony. You won’t walk away from Armageddon Time feeling as if you’ve been enlightened or seen something out of the ordinary, but you may find yourself moved at times and closely connected to your familial past. And at the end of the day, we could all use a little more of that. More Reviews Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Author Name

Argylle January 31, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and behold one of the unexplained mysteries of the universe! What I present to you on the screen is a cat. But it’s also not a cat. It walks like a cat, talks like a cat, and has the overall presence of a cat. And yet, any time you look into its eyes, you are unable to detect any semblance of a soul. How can this be, you ask? The foremost scientists of our time have been unable to determine that answer, nor have they been able to ascertain an answer for why it exists. Did the producers of Argylle not think that cats already exist, and can be trained? Did they recently watch Tom Hooper’s Cats and think that they could go even further down the uncanny valley? Or are they modern Robin Hoods and decided to waste millions of dollars of Apple’s money on something so monumentally stupid? I leave all these questions up to you, ladies and gentlemen. But be warned, the journey to acquire the knowledge that you seek will not be as fun as the marketing would have you believe. A fully CGI cat is only one of several frustrating peculiarities within the freak show brought to us by the “twisted mind” of Matthew Vaughn. At this point, I’d suggest replacing “twisted” with “childish” or “immature.” “Edgy” would also be a good substitute, but only in the context of a twelve-year-old who thinks of themselves as edgy when they tell their first joke that involves swearing or sex. “Original,” however, is a word I would not use for Vaughn or Argylle , no matter how much they try (and let me tell you, they try A LOT ) to make you think they’re one step ahead. In an opening almost ripped straight from Austin Powers in Goldmember (we’re really stealing from the cream of the crop here); we see Henry Cavill sporting one of the most hideous hairstyles in modern cinema, right up there with Taylor Lautner’s flowing locks from Twilight and Nicolas Cage’s from Con Air . He’s on the trail of Lagrange (Dua Lipa), but his role gets flipped to prey once she catches him in a trap. With the help of his two sidekicks (John Cena, Ariana DeBose), Argylle escapes and gets one step closer to solving the ultimate conspiracy. But scratch all that, as Agent Argylle is only a story within a story. The topmost layer has Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) the author of Argylle’s adventures, a series in a long line of successful spy novels. For some reason, almost everything that Elly writes comes true, leading to her life being in danger once a rogue spy syndicate decides to silence her. The only source of help to keeping Elly safe and finding out the full truth is a good spy named Aidan (Sam Rockwell), who claims to know more than he lets on. It’s not that the plot of Argylle is confusing, it’s more that it never registers as interesting or sensical. There’s a lot of moving pieces, but the thread that connects them all together is embarrassingly thin. Before you have time to raise your hand and question why anything is happening, writer Jason Fuchs takes a hard pivot for another “out of this world” twist. The unpredictability of everything becomes tiringly predictable, and even more annoying. What’s also predictable is Vaughn’s staging of the action, which contains no fewer than five set pieces queued to clichéd 60s tunes. To give him credit, one of those scenes contains some nice visual flourishes and choreography. But the rest are bogged down by either horrendous CGI or excessive editing. I’m sure with $100+ million at his disposal, there wasn’t much from Vaughn’s imagination that couldn’t be filmed. But the real question was if he should, not if he could. And the vast majority of this shouldn't have left the brainstorming session. More Reviews Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Author Name

Anora June 7, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen Anora had its World Premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Neon will release it in theaters on October 18. Love him or hate him (I’m curious if there’s anyone out there who hates him), you’ve got to admit that Sean Baker knows how to open a movie. The catchy rhythms of NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye” jolt Red Rocket ’s Mikey Saber awake on his long-haul bus trip from LA to the middle of nowhere in Texas. The lyrics of “You’re probably going to start a fight / I know this can’t be right / Hey baby, come on.” reverberate throughout Mikey’s subsequent actions. But as much as you despise what he’s doing - just like the song - you can’t help but tap along with him. Baker’s newest work, Anora , takes an almost identical strategy. The high-energy beat of Take That’s “ Greatest Day (Remix) ” blasts from the theater speakers as Baker’s signature red-colored cursive opening studio logos bleed across the black screen. The words “Today this could be, the greatest day of our lives,” take over as we fade in on a sex worker giving a lap dance to a very enthusiastic customer. The camera glides from right to left, revealing an assembly line of workers and their male patrons. Everyone is living in euphoria at this moment, the world melting away with each strut of their bodies. I’m pretty sure Greta Gerwig’s Cannes jury only needed these initial thirty seconds to declare this their Palme d’Or winner. For our titular Anora (Mikey Madison), or Ani, as she likes to be called, her night is only just beginning. As the only dancer in her club who can understand Russian on account of her family’s Uzbek background, Ani gets assigned to be the personal escort for a high-rolling Russian fuckboy looking to blow his oligarch father’s money on as many girls and drugs as he can. His name is Ivan/Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) and he speaks in respectably broken English, dons a haircut and skinny frame akin to Timothée Chalamet, and is obviously a rich kid who’s been handed everything on a silver platter all his life. But he pays handsomely and treats Ani with respect, so how can she say no? Things escalate from there, including a New Year’s Eve party at Vanya’s luxurious beachfront mansion and a week-long escapade at the swankiest spots in Las Vegas. Baker’s documentarian aesthetics keep this Pretty Woman- esque tale of young love grounded within reality. The club Ani works at is dingy and run by a pretty scummy group of older guys. And Vanya is no Richard Gere, acting more like a bratty child than the respectable man he’s been sent to America to become. But like any night of ecstasy, the sobering reality of the morning sun eventually sets in. A hasty marriage between Ani and Vanya at one of those seedy Las Vegas chapels brings out the wrath of Vanya’s neglectful parents, who sick their hired goons/caretakers to have the couple’s marriage annulled. They say you truly get to know someone during a moment of weakness, and Ani learns a lot about Vanya once the music stops. A series of misadventures ensue over several hours, more than enough to fill the 139-minute runtime, but not enough to make it wholly justifiable. It’s hard for a comedy, even a truly laugh-out-loud one such as this, to be great when 25% of its runtime could have been trimmed. Madison is always in her element as she follows Baker’s on-the-ground improvisational rhetoric. She delivers a true movie star performance, a quality Baker always seems to find in his often unknown (or underseen) stars. That level of showmanship goes a long way to carry the zaniness. The entire product reminded me of Triangle of Sadness , another Palme d’Or winner that often overstayed its welcome. But both that film and Anora always stand out from the rest of the pack and send you on a high note, which can never go unappreciated. More Reviews Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Author Name

1967: A Dramatic Shift in Film March 29, 2023 By: Hunter Friesen The year 1967 can be regarded as one of the most pivotal years in cinema history. It was a transitional year where the conventional and unconventional came crashing together for the first time on such a large scale. Using David Newman and Robert Benton’s article “The New Sentimentality” (1964), we can categorize the conventional and unconventional into two distinct categories: Old Sentimentality (conventional) and New Sentimentality (unconventional). These two categories were not just found in film, they were also found in nearly every aspect of American culture. Each version of sentimentality garnered financial and critical success in 1967. No two movies were more opposed that year in style, viewpoint, and audience than Mike Nichols’ The Graduate and Stanley Kramer’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner . Also, no two actors better represented their respective sentimentality better than Dustin Hoffman and Sidney Poitier. In this essay, I’ll explain why and how 1967 was such a cinematic turning point that shifted the paradigm of power away from Hollywood conventionalism and towards a new era of auteur cinema. I’ll also look at how both Poitier and Hoffman were shaped by their generation and how their respective careers were forever changed in 1967. To show the difference between Old and New sentimentality, we must define what exactly they are. In simplistic terms, Old Sentimentality represents conventionalism and past values. The values this movement revered were about the good old days of ruggedness, strong moral character, and banding together. These ideas were born out of the nation’s unity and recovery from World War II and were prevalent throughout the next few decades. Figures such as Dwight Eisenhower, John Wayne, and Henry Fonda embodied this type of thinking, and films such as The Ox-Bow Incident, High Noon, and The Best Years of Our Lives were most popular. New Sentimentality began making a presence around the start of the 1960s. It was less about thinking as a group and more about thinking and acting for oneself. New Sentimentality pushed the idea of being self-indulgent, getting carried away, looking inward, and being authentic. John F. Kennedy, Audrey Hepburn, and Elvis Presley were the purveyors of this thinking, which could be found in films such as Bonnie and Clyde (screenplay by Newman and Benton) and Easy Rider . In 1967, producer and director Stanley Kramer released Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner . It was an all-star vehicle for him filled with the biggest stars of the past few decades in Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Sidney Poitier was cast as the figure who’s coming to dinner, John Prentice. The plot is fairly straightforward as Prentice and his new fiancé, Christina, intend to get married. John is a respected medical doctor who has accomplished everything under the sun. Their engagement is under a deadline as he must fly to Europe that night. Christina’s parents, played by Tracy and Hepburn, are taken aback at the reality of their daughter marrying a black man, even though they raised her with a liberal mindset. Stanley Kramer was a director known for incorporating social commentary into his films. He previously had great success with The Defiant Ones and Judgement at Nuremberg . Even though his social messaging would make one think that he was a part of the younger outspoken generation, Kramer geared his films toward the older generation of moviegoers, the ones that would better respond to conventionalism and star power. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner is part of an era in Hollywood where films about race were becoming more popular but weren’t purely benevolent in the way they handled the topic. Instead of utilizing themes like life under Jim Crow, black activism, or black community culture, a lot of films before the Hollywood New Age illustrated that racism was wrong through a white character's conversion from racial prejudice to tolerance. The prototypical movie of this thinking, In the Heat of the Night (also starring Sidney Poitier), won Best Picture that year. In Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner , the racism obstacle is solved by the white parents' eventual acceptance of John marrying their daughter. In his book "Genre and Hollywood," author Steve Neale (1988) breaks this style down even further by explaining that “dramatic conflict [in racism films] was to be structured around two opposing poles clearly representing good and evil, with a readily identifiable hero and villain”. This idea of opposing forces is seen in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner as the prejudiced maid and the nosy Tillie act as the villains for the heroic Draytons to vanquish. Black characters rarely saw themselves as the heroes of their own story. They were either relegated to being the villain or to serve the heroic white characters. This role came to be known as the “noble negro”, a role that Sidney Poitier would play throughout the majority of his career. In her YouTube video Why The Help ?, Isabel Custodio (2020) describes this role as having “its own predictably recurrent tropes. These characters had impossibly noble traits seemingly honed to mollify white audiences. They were slow to anger, had no sexual impulses, and often sacrificed themselves for white co-stars.” Black audiences at the time often found Poitier's characters disingenuous. In Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner , they thought it was ludicrous that Poitier played a world-renowned doctor who acts more holy than Jesus. Why give the parents a pat on the back for accepting a virtually perfect man? Kramer, on the other hand, believed that was the point. By making Prentice so perfect, only his skin color could be the barrier to marriage. Kramer’s viewpoint worked for his audience and the Oscars, as the film was nominated for ten Academy Awards, winning for Best Actress (Katharine Hepburn) and Best Original Screenplay. 1967 marked the peak of Poitier’s career. His successes in previous films had typecast him as the “noble negro”, a role the younger generation didn’t accept. Now that his career is over, it is ironic to say that Poitier’s appeal was to the generation of people that had been holding him back all those years, and not to the people who were looking to create change within the nation and Hollywood system. As Poitier’s career was about to fall, the career of Dustin Hoffman was about to take off like a rocket. 1967 saw the release of The Graduate , directed by Mike Nichols, who was making his follow up to the critically acclaimed Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? . That film put Nichols on the map with its groundbreaking vulgarity and sexual innuendos, with the latter carrying forward into his next film. The Graduate centers around Benjamin Braddock, who has just graduated college and doesn’t know what to do with his life. He finds himself in an affair with Mrs. Robinson, the wife of his father’s business partner. This sexually charged relationship goes on for quite some time until Benjamin catches feelings for Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, Elaine. A beacon of New Sentimentality, The Graduate spoke to a generation through its unmatched authenticity. Dustin Hoffman had no screen presence before being cast. He had no major previous roles and did not possess the classic movie star looks such as the blonde hair of Robert Redford and Paul Newman, or the towering charisma of Warren Beatty. Hoffman was of Jewish descent, which could be easily discerned from his looks, making him even more of an outsider to his contemporaries. Nichols saw something in Hoffman, an opportunity to use his “flaws'' to tell a story to a younger audience growing tired of Hollywood perfectionism. Film critic Roger Ebert (1967) described Hoffman’s performance as “painfully awkward and ethical that we are forced to admit we would act pretty much as he does, even in his most extreme moments." Hoffman’s awkward and anxious performance is filled with the traits of New Sentimentality. The idea of people having inward problems, sleeping around with others, and being wounded were ideas becoming more and more part of the national psyche, especially to young adults. Newman and Benton stressed that New Sentimentality had to do with you and you alone. “Personal interest is the abiding motivation and... your primary objective is to make your life fit your style.” The idea of personal interest and selfishness comes to its apex at the end when both Elaine and Ben run off together, though they have no idea what they are going to do now that they’re gone. Unlike Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner , Nichols (and screenwriters Buck Henry and Calder Willingham) doesn't craft the story around the message. It’s the inverse, as the message comes from the story. Ebert noticed this subversive social messaging in his review, saying, “[the film] is inspired by the free spirit which the young British and French New Wave directors have brought into their movies. It is funny, not because of sight gags and punch lines and other tired rubbish, but because it has a point of view. That is to say, it is against something.” With The Graduate , the audience is the one deciding the message for themselves, instead of it being intentionally swayed towards one side like Kramer did (even if he had good intentions). The Graduate’s methods proved highly successful, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1967 (beating out second-place Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner ) and garnering seven Academy Award nominations, winning for Nichol’s direction. The film also inspired a generation of filmmakers to craft stories for a new generation of moviegoers. Films such as American Graffiti, Harold and Maude , and the filmography of Woody Allen took a more liberal policy towards sex and personal relationships. Dustin Hoffman’s career exploded following 1967. He continued with down and dirty roles in films such as Midnight Cowboy, Straw Dogs, and Lenny . His imperfections won him a passionate following of fans that saw themselves through him. He reached his peak in 1979 with his Oscar-winning role in Kramer vs. Kramer and stayed at the top of his game for nearly a quarter-century with acclaim in later roles in Death of a Salesman, Rain Man, and Tootsie . 1967 was the transition point of two eras in American cinema. It was the beginning of the end for Hollywood conventionalism and the beginning of the rise of auteur-driven filmmaking. Looking through the lens of Old and New Sentimentality, one can see why and how this specific period marked that shift and how it enforced lasting consequences on how filmmakers see their audience and how audiences see themselves on the screen. More Reviews A Minecraft Movie April 2, 2025 By: Hunter Friesen Freaky Tales March 31, 2025 By: Tyler Banark Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name William Tell September 5, 2024 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Tetris March 28, 2023 By: Button Hunter Friesen If 2022 was the year of taking down the rich in Triangle of Sadness, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery , and The Menu , then 2023 is the year for telling the story of the companies that made so many of those people rich. Corporations have already tied their hands around movies with product placement ( a favorite of David Lynch ), tie-ins, promotional screenings, and merchandising. Now they’ve cut out the middleman and made themselves the star of the show. Just on the docket within the next few months are Air, Blackberry, Flamin’ Hot , and Barbie . Of course, it’s not all doom and gloom, as for every glorified commercial ( Mac and Me ) there is a smart and interesting story about power and ambition ( The Social Network ). Landing somewhere in the middle (to be fair, it leans more towards the good side) is Tetris , which explores the complex origins of the simple game that has gone on to entertain billions of people. “Good ideas have no borders,” says Alexey Pajitnov, inventor of Tetris to Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton) as they embrace at a Moscow rave. The statement is especially true in this situation because there’s not much else that would make a Dutchman game designer, an American lawyer, and two British tycoons converge in the heart of the Soviet Union. To all these people, Tetris is the perfect video game, with the simple task of stacking blocks being incredibly addictive. However, it’s just as hard to get something out of Russia as it is to get in. To the Communist Party, a sale of Tetris to the West would be the start of a slippery slope, one where capitalism slowly poisons their socialist society. KGB operatives watch Henk all day and night, blackmailing and threatening him at every turn. What ensues is a suspenseful game filled with high-stakes and tough negotiations Screenwriter Noah Pink (creator of the anthology series Genius ) initially struggles to seamlessly lay out the level, opting for an incredibly exposition-heavy opening where Henk explains the intricacies of video game distribution to his less-than-impressed banker. Director Jon S. Baird makes this more entertaining visually as Egerton’s narration goes over a series of 8-bit animated sequences. The gaming aesthetics don’t stop there, as Baird takes Henk’s line of how he “still sees blocks” after only playing the game for five minutes in its most literal form. The coldly gray Soviet buildings are outlined in blocks, ready to be toppled over once everything is aligned just right. Because of where and when it's set, Tetris finds itself at a pivotal showdown between traditional Communist loyalists and new-era Russian idealists. Many of the thinly drawn Russian villains are better capitalists than the actual capitalists themselves. But they’re no match for Henk’s relentless optimism, which overwhelms their natural pessimistic mistrust. Egerton brings a lot of charisma to his role, charging headfirst through every obstacle. The blocks may fall a little too easily for Tetris , but that doesn’t take away from the appreciation it deserves for guiding us through this concrete jungle of paperwork and legal minutia. Coincidentally, it also illustrates how far technology has come since then, as this story of arcade machines and handheld gaming consoles will be seen by everyone through Apple TV+’s streaming service. More Reviews Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Author Name

The Beekeeper January 10, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen It’s only the second week of January and 2024 already has its best bad movie of the year. The Beekeeper is a downright terrible on any “objective” scale; cheesily written, stupidly conceived, overly serious, acting so hammy it might as well be served for Christmas dinner, and a mountain of ludicrous twists and turns that leave you howling in disbelief. It’s everything I wanted and more in January, a month known for being a haven to the unwanted offspring of major studios (see Monster Trucks , Dolittle , and the already-forgotten Night Swim ). Jason Statham plays… Jason Statham (obviously). But more specifically, he plays Adam Clay, who is both a retired and current beekeeper. How does that work, you ask? Well, he’s a current beekeeper in the literal sense that he keeps bees on a farm, one owned by Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad). Both of them have their own little slice of heaven, a quiet life cut off from the modern world. But that heaven becomes hell once Eloise is the victim of an online scam. You know, those ones where you get an email from a Nigerian Prince who will pay you $1 million in the future if you just send him $10,000 today? Except this time the predator is not a foreign dignitary, but a bunch of “crypto bros” who’ve watched The Wolf of Wall Street too many times without getting the point. They steal everything, including the $2 million in an account Eloise manages for a children’s charity (those bastards!). This is where Adam being a retired beekeeper comes into play. A beekeeper is a sort of super assassin given carte blanche by the US government to carry out whatever acts they determine are necessary to “maintain the hive.” Things were always professional with Adam, but now they’ve made it personal. And when a beekeeper has their sights set on you, it’s near-certain the only way to escape is through a body bag. Having a James Bond/John Wick super-spy called a “beekeeper” is only the tip of the iceberg in the mountain of lunacy that is Kurt Wimmer’s script. I’d challenge you to take a shot every time Statham drops the word “the hive” or says “I’m just a beekeeper,” but that would make me liable for an alcohol-related death. To be honest, cutting a shot down to just a sip would still be dangerous. Wimmer must also be a card-carrying member of AARP as the movie stops dead in its tracks for Statham to speechify about how scamming the elderly is worse than robbing children, as kids have their parents to look after them. There’s even a one-liner about estate planning before a bad guy gets flung to his death. Wimmer and director David Ayer (yes, the director of Suicide Squad , which this movie proudly advertises as a badge of honor) try to craft a message around Adam being a Robin Hood figure who is fighting for the little guys. Though the concept of a relentless killing machine chopping his way through a bunch of preppy douchebags for “the people” is so hilariously undercooked and poorly thought out that it nears parody. A second-act twist about the real occupation of a supporting character does muddy the morality and almost makes Wimmer and Ayer’s stance feel a little dangerous, but the threat of a Joker -esque situation that rallies the incels is nonexistent on account of the shark-jumping that immediately proceeds it. There’s no need to comment on Statham’s performance, as you get exactly what you expected (and likely came for). Jeremy Irons is too old for this shit and having fun with that fact, lighting up every scene he shares with Josh Hutcherson playing the most punchable little shit to hit the screen in quite some time. Even Minnie Driver shows up for ninety seconds to widen her eyes and act terrified once she learns that a beekeeper is on the loose. The Beekeeper is what mindless action movies should strive for, although I’m not sure Wimmer and Ayer would be able to share how they’ve crafted a movie that is both self-aware and totally oblivious to being so bad it’s good. Hey, even a blind squirrel can find a nut every once in a while. More Reviews Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Author Name

A Quiet Place: Day One June 27, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen A Quiet Place , the franchise that suffers the most from sound bleed within multiplexes, returns to nearly four thousand screens this weekend. Any fan needs to pray that they’re not seeing it in a room next to a showing of either Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga or Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire . A24’s newest little indie, Janet Planet , would actually be the perfect companion piece, with its sweet sounds of summer barely registering over a whisper. But the absolute silence that A Quiet Place: Day One dwells in may be a necessary method of cracking down on the loud talkers, creaky seats, and loud munching that goes on in today’s theatrical environment. A lost battle today may mean a victorious war later. That's probably wishful thinking, though. Taking over the reins from previous writer/director/star John Krasinski, who was busy with IF , is Michael Sarnoski, who burst onto the independent scene in 2021 with the incredibly unique Nicolas Cage vehicle, Pig . As par for the course, Sarnoski finds himself leading a film with a budget 20x that of his previous one, a task that many before him have crumbled from. But the sophomore director, who also pens the screenplay (story credit shared with Krasinski), doesn’t fault under the pressure, finding a few paths to breathe life into this franchise, one that is further proving itself to be a one-trick pony. Those who have seen Pig will find it unsurprising that the best scene within this story of aliens and bloodshed comes relatively early on at a marionette show. A puppet blows up a balloon and dances around with it for a little while, Alexis Grapsas’ score twinkling as the stage light gives it a soft glow. It’s a scene that ranks relatively low in terms of significance, yet there’s something powerful about the stillness it creates just before fire starts raining down from the sky. From there, we pretty much go through the motions laid down by the previous two entities, as well as other creature features like Jurassic Park . Steven Spielberg’s 2005 remake of War of the Worlds came to mind a few times, with the fear of the unknown being just as spine-chilling as the ashy destruction. Sarnoski and his sound team make you see, or, in this case, hear, the world differently. The opening text states that the noise of New York City registers around 90 decibels at all times, which nearly equates to a constant scream. Everything that makes up that figure becomes a death sentence in this new apocalypse. A rip of a shirt or opening a briefcase too quickly is all that it takes to have the monsters descend the skyscrapers. For as well as they pull it off, this franchise still only pedals the same set piece for the monsters. It’s the one where the characters are walking quietly, someone accidentally knocks over a can or piece of glass, the monsters start chasing them, and then the characters sit in silence for a few moments until the monsters hear something else. We’ve seen it over a dozen times now, and the five to six times we experience it here are no different. While the story of Day One answers the “how” question of what happened to the world in the previous two entities, the characters within it answer the “why.” More specifically, they answer the question of why people try to exist in this world, why they’re clinging on when hell has taken over. Centering that is Lupita Nyong’o’s character Samira, who is terminally ill and already checked out on life. Nyong’o has already proved her masterful horror chops in Us a few years back, her facial expressions and body movements excellently developing the doppelganger premise. The minimalist dialogue here does her no harm, with her strengths as a performer being even more evident. The cat that accompanies her journey may as well be third billed just behind Joseph Quinn, who also puts in some good work. The world of A Quiet Place is not a place for dogs, that’s for sure. More Reviews Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Author Name