05 Feb 2024

Wall of Shame: “The Zone of Interest,” “Argylle,” “Scrambled,” and “The Greatest Night in Pop”

By Mike Schulz

I now have to watch The Zone of Interest again – and maybe again and again. It may be too massive for only one viewing. As I've learned, it certainly appears too massive for one viewing without a dialogue afterward

29 Jan 2024

Caste Away: “Origin,” “Nimona,” “American Symphony,” and “Flamin' Hot”

By Mike Schulz

The rare intellectual exercise that's also an emotional gut punch, writer/director Ava DuVernay's Origin delivers its most emblematic sequence toward the end of its 140 minutes, when all of the movie's many varied themes seem to intertwine in a heartrending, enraging true tale about a little boy and a swimming pool.

21 Jan 2024

As Below, So Above: “I.S.S.” and “All of Us Strangers”

By Mike Schulz

I.S.S. is exactly what an edgy, professionally rendered January debut should be: 90 minutes long. Is it good? Yes. Is it great? No. Is there any reason to complain about that? Hell, no.

15 Jan 2024

clique … clique … Boom!: “Mean Girls,” “American Fiction,” “The Book of Clarence,” “The Beekeeper,” and “Night Swim”

By Mike Schulz

If you liked the 2004 version, you almost can't help but enjoy this latest one, because it's the same movie, albeit with songs.

08 Jan 2024

Manifest Destiny: “Society of the Snow,” “Good Grief,” “Foe,” and “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie”

By Mike Schulz

It arrived a few days late, but the undisputed movie tearjerker of 2023 finally landed in '24 with Thursday's Netflix debut of Society of the Snow, writer/director J.A. Bayona's foreign-language survival thriller about the 1972 Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 disaster.

29 Dec 2023

Sing, Celie, and Deliver: “The Color Purple,” “Ferrari,” and “Leave the World Behind”

By Mike Schulz

In its new musical incarnation, The Color Purple isn't a very good movie. But I'm not sure how much that matters.

23 Dec 2023

From Bernstein to Frankenstein: “Maestro,” “Migration,” “Aquaman & the Lost Kingdom,” “Anyone but You,” “The Iron Claw,” and “Poor Things”

By Mike Schulz

I didn't “attend” the first film in my three-day sextuple feature so much as “plop my ass on the couch and watch” it. And for the first hour-or-so of director/writer/producer/star Bradley Cooper's Maestro, which started streaming on Netflix this past Wednesday, I couldn't imagine wanting to be anywhere else.

18 Dec 2023

Strike That, Reverse It: “Wonka,” “The Boys in the Boat,” and “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget”

By Mike Schulz

Writer/director Paul King's musical-comedy prequel Wonka isn't hard to enjoy. Yet I'd argue that it'll be even easier if you manage to divorce yourself from memories of previous Willy Wonkas – Roald Dahl's, for sure, but also Gene Wilder's and Johnny Depp's.

11 Dec 2023

Obsession Compulsive: “Eileen” and “The Boy & the Heron”

By Mike Schulz

Its setting may be wintry New England in the early '60s, and its story may conclude on Christmas Day, but don't even think about mistaking director William Oldroyd's Eileen for feel-good seasonal fare: It's a cup of eggnog deliciously laced with strychnine.

04 Dec 2023

Image Conscience: “May December,” “Godzilla Minus One,” “Dream Scenario,” “The Shift,” “Silent Night,” and “Candy Cane Lane”

By Mike Schulz

The central figures in this thrillingly unsettling dramatic comedy are constantly projecting images of themselves as they desperately hope to be perceived, yet all three of them are deeply deluded – and only one of them will emerge unscathed with delusions blissfully intact.

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