02 Jul 2015

He Be Back: "Terminator Genisys," "Magic Mike XXL," and "Me & Earl & the Dying Girl"

By Mike Schulz

Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator GenisysTERMINATOR GENISYS

Following some requisite, necessary backstory, Terminator Genisys opens in 2029 Los Angeles, where resistance leader John Connor (Jason Clarke) transports fellow revolutionary Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) to 1984, where he's to hopefully prevent global apocalypse and protect John's mother Sarah (Emilia Clarke) from a murderous robot (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Upon arriving, however, Kyle finds that Sarah doesn't need saving and the robot isn't murderous, so off they go to 2017, where the planet is still imperiled, and John Connor himself proves to be the source of the planet's eventual ruin. After one of these whisks through the decades, Kyle says, "Time travel makes my head hurt," and time-travel movies generally make my head hurt, too. But for a fifth installment in an increasingly confounding series, this particular time-travel movie is actually a fair bit of fun.

26 Oct 2014

How the Grinch Stole Brooklyn: "St. Vincent," "John Wick," and "Ouija"

By Mike Schulz

Jaeden Lieberher and Bill Murray in St. VincentST. VINCENT

St. Vincent stars Bill Murray as the titular (if decidedly un-saintly) Vincent, a cranky, disheveled grump who may be the meanest man in Brooklyn, if not all of New York. He speaks in a honking regional dialect and guzzles brown liquor by the quart, and his only pals are a pair of fellow barflies and the local hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold. He's frequently seen chain-smoking in a porkpie hat with oversize sunglasses, and spends his days at the track making losing bets with his bookie. At his ramshackle home, he watches old Abbott & Costello movies on an ancient television and, when drunk, drives straight over his white picket fence. When a neighbor kid needs to use a pay phone, Vincent begrudgingly gives him a dime for the call. Given all this, in what year would you guess St. Vincent takes place? 1957? 1958?

27 Apr 2014

Cheat Wave: "The Other Woman," "The Quiet Ones," and "Brick Mansions"

By Mike Schulz

Cameron Diaz, Kate Upton, and Leslie Mann in The Other WomanTHE OTHER WOMAN

Unduly high expectations, as we all know, can sometimes ruin your movie-going experience. Unduly low expectations, on the other hand, generally yield nothing but benefits, and so I'd like to thank film-critic consensus for making me so fearful of Nick Cassavetes' The Other Woman. This revenge comedy may be indefensibly weak, but the unbridled and unwarranted zeal with which so many people are attacking it - The Dispatch/Rock Island Argus used Richard Roeper's description "excruciatingly awful" as the review's headline - makes me feel that some defense might be necessary.

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