27 Feb 2023

It Had Some Coke, and You'll Smile: ”Cocaine Bear” and “Jesus Revolution”

By Mike Schulz

While Cocaine Beat is both less stupid that it could have been and less stupid than it should have been, I had a surprisingly agreeable time – and so did a high-schooler friend of mine, and my 50-something bestie, and my octogenarian mother.

18 Feb 2023

It's a Smaller World, After All: “Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania” and “Marlowe”

By Mike Schulz

Of the three showcases to date for Paul Rudd's alternately diminutive and behemoth superhero, Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania is the one I dislike the least. As I see it, credit for that is due to precisely two elements. Compared to Ant-Man & the Wasp, this new adventure has roughly 75-percent more Michelle Pfeiffer; and compared to the 2018 sequel and 2015's original Ant-Man, it has 100-percent more Jonathan Majors.

13 Feb 2023

A Real Grind: “Magic Mike's Last Dance,” “Consecration,” “Your Place or Mine,” and “You People”

By Mike Schulz

In a recent Vulture interview, Steven Soderbergh, director of 2012's original Magic Mike, stated that until he saw and adored the movie's London-stage-revue version in 2018, he found “no compelling reason to make a third film.” So now we have the Soderbergh-helmed Magic Mike's Last Dance … and this sequel feels like it still has no compelling reason to exist.

07 Feb 2023

Gig o' Bytes: “Atanasoff: Father of the Computer,” at Augustana College on February 23

By Mike Schulz

A doc can get away with an unexciting, even bland presentation so long as the story it tells captures and holds your interest, and directors Mila Aung-Thwin's and Daniel Cross' 2014 documentary Atanasoff: Father of the Computer kept me interested, and quite invested, through the whole of its too-short 45 minutes.

06 Feb 2023

Jersey Girls: “80 for Brady,” “Knock at the Cabin,” and “The Amazing Maurice”

By Mike Schulz

Among the quartet of living legends who star in 80 for Brady, Jane Fonda plays a romance-hungry author of steamy, football-themed fan fiction. Director Kyle Marvin's buddy comedy could hardly be called steamy, but it, too, is football-themed fan fiction, and about as winning as movies of its type ever get.

30 Jan 2023

Talking, Living, Drinking, Dying: “Women Talking,” “Living,” “To Leslie,” and “Infinity Pool”

By Mike Schulz

The January 24 reveal of this year's Oscar nominees brought with it the usual amount of pleasures, disappointments, and surprises, as well as our annual reminder that not every movie voters get to see is one Quad Citians have been able to see. Two of the stragglers, however, managed to secure local releases this past weekend. Another contender has been available for rental and purchase for weeks, but found itself as perhaps the title that Academy Awards completists wanted/needed to catch up with above all others.

22 Jan 2023

Finder's Feed: “Missing,” “EO,” and “The Son”

By Mike Schulz

If any movie this season can truly unify parents with their teenagers, it'll likely be Missing, the new mystery thriller whose morals can be effectively boiled down to “You need to always be honest with me, Mom” and “You need to pick up when I call, sweetie.”

16 Jan 2023

Requiem for Your Dreams: “Skinamarink,” “Plane,” and “House Party”

By Mike Schulz

I, personally, found the experience of Skinamarink extremely tiresome and legit-scary for maybe 100 seconds of its 100-minute running length. Dammit, though, if I can't get this thing out of my head.

09 Jan 2023

A Doll's House: “M3GAN” and “A Man Called Otto”

By Mike Schulz

There's no doubt a smarter, meaner movie tucked inside director Gerard Johnstone's M3GAN, but the largely dopey, relatively tame one we're given is a lot of fun, too.

27 Dec 2022

Haul Out the Hollywood: “Babylon,” “The Whale,” “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” “Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical,” and “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish”

By Mike Schulz

Over the course of three hours and nine minutes, there's one sensationally effective, entertaining, and even educational sequence in Damien Chazelle's Babylon – even if, like everything else in this wildly indulgent and obnoxious old-Hollywood saga, it, too, eventually gets royally effed up.

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