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COMMUNE - FILM
The Black Bear communal ranch in northern California was partially funded by rock stars who were guilted into ponying up the dough by a handful of enterprising hippies who accused them of "trading off our lifestyle." That kind of defiant idealism was a lofty place for the Black Bears to start, and Jonathan Berman's documentary Commune covers the founders' inevitable descent intoTHE GRUDGE - FILM
Like so many Japanese innovations, the late-'90s genre known as J-horror took its time reaching the West, but now seems poised to become part of the fabric of everyday life. The Ring began the cycle in 2002, bringing American crowds into a remake of what was, in Japan and much of Asia, already a long-running franchise of horror films about a cursed videotape. The Grudge tries to do ...AND GOD CREATED WOMAN Clearly viewing female sexuality as a force only marginally less dangerous than the hydrogen bomb, And God Created Woman is an awful film full of stilted dialogue, egregious sexism, and ugly racism. But as a depiction of post-war masculinity attempting to come to terms with a new breed of woman, it's a historic bit of pop-culturesociology.
INSOMNIA - FILM
A gimmick is only a gimmick if it's in service of nothing but its own gimmickry. The big twist in Christopher Nolan's astonishing Memento–a thriller that unfolds in reverse chronological order–is that the gimmick suddenly melts away, revealing a deeply considered and profound statement about the slippery nature of memory and the human capacity for self-deception. So it only followsSAW - THE A.V. CLUB
They collect bones, dine on fresh brains, stitch together plus-size human skins, demonstrate the Seven Deadly Sins with grisly literalism, and delight in prodding existentially tortured detectives by leaving oblique clues at the crime scene. Yet no serial killer has ever been as gimmicky as the bogeyman in James Wan's uproariously idiotic thriller Saw, which plays like a cross between SevenGALAXY QUEST
It's been a strange couple of years for the Star Trek franchise. At least since the re-release of the original Star Wars trilogy in 1997, Trek's place in popular culture has seemed considerably less prominent, as two series left the air and the public's attention turned away from the principled humanism of Gene Roddenberry's creation and more toward the mythic vagaries of SUNDANCE WINNER NANCY TOYS WITH OUR SYMPATHY FOR A The “unlikable female protagonist” subgenre finds a worthy new entry in Nancy, the Sundance-winning feature debut of talented writer-director Christina Choe. In an emotionally ambiguous, formally restrained tale of intentionally mistaken identity, Nancy sets its title character up as a lost, lonely woman in an alienating world, then pushes the audience’s sympathy for her as far as it can go. IN THE UNNERVING SUN CHOKE, A SICK WOMAN SPREADS HER Sarah Hagan has had two memorably substantial roles in her career thus far—both on television, and both over a decade ago. She was the rigorously prim mathlete Millie on Freaks And Geeks, and played Amanda, one of the “potentials” in the final season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Since the early 2000s, Hagan’s mostly been relegated to guest shots and bit parts, but that should change FILM | THE A.V. CLUB 1. There’s a running gag about binge-watching Friends in the sweet, amiable, mildly subversive indie comedy Together Together. It’s not a knee-slapper, exactly—the film uses a ’90s primetime phenomenon that’s become a shorthand for basic pop culture taste as an easy way to bridge the generational gap between two people . FILM | THE A.V. CLUB Pop culture obsessives writing for the pop culture obsessed. Advertisement Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. This week: With Cruella coming to theaters and Disney+, we’re looking at some ofCOMMUNE - FILM
The Black Bear communal ranch in northern California was partially funded by rock stars who were guilted into ponying up the dough by a handful of enterprising hippies who accused them of "trading off our lifestyle." That kind of defiant idealism was a lofty place for the Black Bears to start, and Jonathan Berman's documentary Commune covers the founders' inevitable descent intoTHE GRUDGE - FILM
Like so many Japanese innovations, the late-'90s genre known as J-horror took its time reaching the West, but now seems poised to become part of the fabric of everyday life. The Ring began the cycle in 2002, bringing American crowds into a remake of what was, in Japan and much of Asia, already a long-running franchise of horror films about a cursed videotape. The Grudge tries to do ...AND GOD CREATED WOMAN Clearly viewing female sexuality as a force only marginally less dangerous than the hydrogen bomb, And God Created Woman is an awful film full of stilted dialogue, egregious sexism, and ugly racism. But as a depiction of post-war masculinity attempting to come to terms with a new breed of woman, it's a historic bit of pop-culturesociology.
INSOMNIA - FILM
A gimmick is only a gimmick if it's in service of nothing but its own gimmickry. The big twist in Christopher Nolan's astonishing Memento–a thriller that unfolds in reverse chronological order–is that the gimmick suddenly melts away, revealing a deeply considered and profound statement about the slippery nature of memory and the human capacity for self-deception. So it only followsSAW - THE A.V. CLUB
They collect bones, dine on fresh brains, stitch together plus-size human skins, demonstrate the Seven Deadly Sins with grisly literalism, and delight in prodding existentially tortured detectives by leaving oblique clues at the crime scene. Yet no serial killer has ever been as gimmicky as the bogeyman in James Wan's uproariously idiotic thriller Saw, which plays like a cross between SevenGALAXY QUEST
It's been a strange couple of years for the Star Trek franchise. At least since the re-release of the original Star Wars trilogy in 1997, Trek's place in popular culture has seemed considerably less prominent, as two series left the air and the public's attention turned away from the principled humanism of Gene Roddenberry's creation and more toward the mythic vagaries of SUNDANCE WINNER NANCY TOYS WITH OUR SYMPATHY FOR A The “unlikable female protagonist” subgenre finds a worthy new entry in Nancy, the Sundance-winning feature debut of talented writer-director Christina Choe. In an emotionally ambiguous, formally restrained tale of intentionally mistaken identity, Nancy sets its title character up as a lost, lonely woman in an alienating world, then pushes the audience’s sympathy for her as far as it can go. IN THE UNNERVING SUN CHOKE, A SICK WOMAN SPREADS HER Sarah Hagan has had two memorably substantial roles in her career thus far—both on television, and both over a decade ago. She was the rigorously prim mathlete Millie on Freaks And Geeks, and played Amanda, one of the “potentials” in the final season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Since the early 2000s, Hagan’s mostly been relegated to guest shots and bit parts, but that should change FILM | THE A.V. CLUB Night In Paradise brings a stylish, wearyingly grim South Korean crime epic to Netflix. Jason Shawhan. 9. Save. Two gangs, the Yang and Bukseong, have gathered for a summit to stem the hemorrhaging of goons from both. The negotiations, which will end some lives and save others, unfold across a table headed by Police Director Ma (ChaSeung-won).
FILM | THE A.V. CLUB 14. Save. Yesterday, the British Academy Of Film And Television Arts started holding its annual awards ceremony, the BAFTAs, with Sound Of Metal taking home the top prize of Best Sound (naturally, because “sound” is right there in the title). Much like a particularly contentious game of cricket, though, the BAFTAs actually go . FILM | THE A.V. CLUB Steven Seagal is a frequently accused sexual predator and all-around dumpster human. He also runs like a toddler who just pissed his pants in the local grocery story and is frantically searching for an adult to change his pull-up diapers. We’ve documented much of theSTAR TREK - FILM
Mothballed early this decade by a string of increasingly unpopular TV series and films, the venerable Star Trek series hasn’t so much been pulled out of storage with this new film as dusted off, broken down to its most basic parts, streamlined, and sent blazing off at an acute angle from its original course. Directed by J.J. Abrams—it’s his second feature directorial effort after helpingAIRPLANE! - FILM
Before Airplane! came along in 1980, the anything-goes vaudeville aesthetic had more or less died off with the Marx Brothers, which might explain why much of a generation grew up thinking the disaster-movie spoof was the funniest ever made. Not the best comedy ever made, of course, but considered in bulk, nothing could really top the sheer quantity of laughs being offered, even when LAND REVIEW: A TEPID FIRST FEATURE FOR ROBIN WRIGHT In the opening scene of Land, the first feature film directed by Robin Wright, a fruitless therapy session captured in anemic neutral colors gives way to a glorious, sun-specked drive up the mountains of Wyoming.Suicidal after a devastating loss, Edee (Wright, pulling double duty behind and in front of the camera) has gone off the grid, purchasing a dingy log cabin where she plans to live outGALAXY QUEST
It's been a strange couple of years for the Star Trek franchise. At least since the re-release of the original Star Wars trilogy in 1997, Trek's place in popular culture has seemed considerably less prominent, as two series left the air and the public's attention turned away from the principled humanism of Gene Roddenberry's creation and more toward the mythic vagaries of George Lucas'YOU, THE LIVING
Finished right on time for the new millennium, Roy Andersson’s 2000 opus Songs From The Second Floor captured the apocalyptic mood of the world’s deepest pessimists with mordant black comedy and mind-blowing cinematic tableaux. Andersson’s attitude was so bleak—and the lumpen souls on display so pallid, dreary, and hopeless—that it manifested as gallows humor, his artful way of THE ASTONISHING DOCUMENTARY APOLLO 11 SHOOTS THE MOON Shutting down conspiracy theorists probably wasn’t high on director Todd Douglas Miller’s to-do list when he was making the documentary Apollo 11. So just consider it a bonus that his film about the first manned moon landing is so immersive that it feels like it’s happening in real-time on screen—and definitively un-faked. Apollo 11 doesn’t run through the usual grainy footage thatDESPICABLE ME
Until the “creep + orphans = happy family” formula starts demanding abrupt, unconvincing character mutations, Despicable Me is a giddy joy. It takes place in a world seemingly inspired by The Incredibles—the superheroes are missing, but the cartoon physics, crazy devices, and outsized conquer-the-world plots are all in place, ready to set up big action setpieces with a sly sense of humor.COMMUNE - FILM
The Black Bear communal ranch in northern California was partially funded by rock stars who were guilted into ponying up the dough by a handful of enterprising hippies who accused them of "trading off our lifestyle." That kind of defiant idealism was a lofty place for the Black Bears to start, and Jonathan Berman's documentary Commune covers the founders' inevitable descent intoAIRPLANE! - FILM
Before Airplane! came along in 1980, the anything-goes vaudeville aesthetic had more or less died off with the Marx Brothers, which might explain why much of a generation grew up thinking the disaster-movie spoof was the funniest ever made. Not the best comedy ever made, of course, but considered in bulk, nothing could really top the sheer quantity of laughs being offered, even whenTHE GRUDGE - FILM
Like so many Japanese innovations, the late-'90s genre known as J-horror took its time reaching the West, but now seems poised to become part of the fabric of everyday life. The Ring began the cycle in 2002, bringing American crowds into a remake of what was, in Japan and much of Asia, already a long-running franchise of horror films about a cursed videotape. The Grudge tries to doTHE AVIATOR
By all accounts, the making of Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York was an Olympian undertaking, only slightly less difficult and logistically challenging than the Allied invasion of Normandy. Most mere mortals would take an extended break after such a mammoth effort, but Scorsese has leaped madly back into the fray with The Aviator, another sprawling, two-fisted, larger-than-life American epicOLD PARTNER
Old Partner isn’t entirely the story of man and ox shuffling off into the sunset together. It’s also the story of poverty, sacrifice, physical agony, and very real emotional tumult. That’s because Choi also has a long-suffering wife, Lee Sam-soon, whose every word is a lament over his hardheaded insistence on caring for the ox, whose health and happiness he’s unambiguously placed over IT'S MATT DAMON VERSUS ALAIN DELON IN THE BATTLE OF THE Purple Noon (1960) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999). Tom Ripley is a chameleon. Over the course of five tense page-turners by the American novelist Patricia Highsmith, the famous con artist assumes stolen identities, falsifies documents, and murderously ties up loose ends—all to forge, in multiple senses of the word, the life that he wants.For an actor, the challenge and perhaps also theJOHN ADAMS - FILM
John Adams was one of the unlikeliest founding fathers, more swept up in the events of the American Revolution than out in front of them. Because of that, he's been an ideal subject for two ground-level studies of how America came to be: David McCullough's epic biography John Adams, and HBO's seven-part, nearly nine-hour adaptation of same.As portrayed by Paul Giamatti on HBO, Adams is a JACK NICHOLSON AND MERYL STREEP HIT THE STREETS IN IRONWEED Ironweed (1987). Ironweed wastes no time in establishing the weight of its sadness: Very early on, Francis (Jack Nicholson), a Depression-era bum poking around his hometown of Albany, New York, visits the grave of his long-gone infant son.The baby died just days old when Francis dropped him, and it becomes clear that this moment is about when Francis checked out of his family life.Y TU MAMÁ TAMBIÉN
There are plenty of boys-to-men films about the raunchy adventures of pleasure-seeking teenagers, but Alfonso Cuarón's inspired and exhilarating road movie Y Tu Mamá También taps so directly into their teeming energy that it all but levitates off the screen. Its heroes, a pair of raffish young scoundrels and layabouts who care about nothing outside their own gratification, could fit in SUNDANCE WINNER NANCY TOYS WITH OUR SYMPATHY FOR A The “unlikable female protagonist” subgenre finds a worthy new entry in Nancy, the Sundance-winning feature debut of talented writer-director Christina Choe. In an emotionally ambiguous, formally restrained tale of intentionally mistaken identity, Nancy sets its title character up as a lost, lonely woman in an alienating world, then pushes the audience’s sympathy for her as far as it can go.COMMUNE - FILM
The Black Bear communal ranch in northern California was partially funded by rock stars who were guilted into ponying up the dough by a handful of enterprising hippies who accused them of "trading off our lifestyle." That kind of defiant idealism was a lofty place for the Black Bears to start, and Jonathan Berman's documentary Commune covers the founders' inevitable descent intoAIRPLANE! - FILM
Before Airplane! came along in 1980, the anything-goes vaudeville aesthetic had more or less died off with the Marx Brothers, which might explain why much of a generation grew up thinking the disaster-movie spoof was the funniest ever made. Not the best comedy ever made, of course, but considered in bulk, nothing could really top the sheer quantity of laughs being offered, even whenTHE GRUDGE - FILM
Like so many Japanese innovations, the late-'90s genre known as J-horror took its time reaching the West, but now seems poised to become part of the fabric of everyday life. The Ring began the cycle in 2002, bringing American crowds into a remake of what was, in Japan and much of Asia, already a long-running franchise of horror films about a cursed videotape. The Grudge tries to doTHE AVIATOR
By all accounts, the making of Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York was an Olympian undertaking, only slightly less difficult and logistically challenging than the Allied invasion of Normandy. Most mere mortals would take an extended break after such a mammoth effort, but Scorsese has leaped madly back into the fray with The Aviator, another sprawling, two-fisted, larger-than-life American epicOLD PARTNER
Old Partner isn’t entirely the story of man and ox shuffling off into the sunset together. It’s also the story of poverty, sacrifice, physical agony, and very real emotional tumult. That’s because Choi also has a long-suffering wife, Lee Sam-soon, whose every word is a lament over his hardheaded insistence on caring for the ox, whose health and happiness he’s unambiguously placed over IT'S MATT DAMON VERSUS ALAIN DELON IN THE BATTLE OF THE Purple Noon (1960) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999). Tom Ripley is a chameleon. Over the course of five tense page-turners by the American novelist Patricia Highsmith, the famous con artist assumes stolen identities, falsifies documents, and murderously ties up loose ends—all to forge, in multiple senses of the word, the life that he wants.For an actor, the challenge and perhaps also theJOHN ADAMS - FILM
John Adams was one of the unlikeliest founding fathers, more swept up in the events of the American Revolution than out in front of them. Because of that, he's been an ideal subject for two ground-level studies of how America came to be: David McCullough's epic biography John Adams, and HBO's seven-part, nearly nine-hour adaptation of same.As portrayed by Paul Giamatti on HBO, Adams is a JACK NICHOLSON AND MERYL STREEP HIT THE STREETS IN IRONWEED Ironweed (1987). Ironweed wastes no time in establishing the weight of its sadness: Very early on, Francis (Jack Nicholson), a Depression-era bum poking around his hometown of Albany, New York, visits the grave of his long-gone infant son.The baby died just days old when Francis dropped him, and it becomes clear that this moment is about when Francis checked out of his family life.Y TU MAMÁ TAMBIÉN
There are plenty of boys-to-men films about the raunchy adventures of pleasure-seeking teenagers, but Alfonso Cuarón's inspired and exhilarating road movie Y Tu Mamá También taps so directly into their teeming energy that it all but levitates off the screen. Its heroes, a pair of raffish young scoundrels and layabouts who care about nothing outside their own gratification, could fit in SUNDANCE WINNER NANCY TOYS WITH OUR SYMPATHY FOR A The “unlikable female protagonist” subgenre finds a worthy new entry in Nancy, the Sundance-winning feature debut of talented writer-director Christina Choe. In an emotionally ambiguous, formally restrained tale of intentionally mistaken identity, Nancy sets its title character up as a lost, lonely woman in an alienating world, then pushes the audience’s sympathy for her as far as it can go.DESPICABLE ME
Until the “creep + orphans = happy family” formula starts demanding abrupt, unconvincing character mutations, Despicable Me is a giddy joy. It takes place in a world seemingly inspired by The Incredibles—the superheroes are missing, but the cartoon physics, crazy devices, and outsized conquer-the-world plots are all in place, ready to set up big action setpieces with a sly sense of humor.YOU, THE LIVING
Finished right on time for the new millennium, Roy Andersson’s 2000 opus Songs From The Second Floor captured the apocalyptic mood of the world’s deepest pessimists with mordant black comedy and mind-blowing cinematic tableaux. Andersson’s attitude was so bleak—and the lumpen souls on display so pallid, dreary, and hopeless—that it manifested as gallows humor, his artful way ofINSOMNIA - FILM
A gimmick is only a gimmick if it's in service of nothing but its own gimmickry. The big twist in Christopher Nolan's astonishing Memento–a thriller that unfolds in reverse chronological order–is that the gimmick suddenly melts away, revealing a deeply considered and profound statement about the slippery nature of memory and the human capacity for self-deception. So it only followsSUPER 8 - FILM
Set in the streets, magic-hour-blanketed hills, and cluttered suburban homes of a small Ohio town as the 1970s edge into the ’80s, the J.J. Abrams -scripted-and-directed Super 8 —which Spielberg produced—consciously, and successfully, looks back to an era of abundant Spielbergiana. Joel Courtney leads a cast of talented, mostlyunfamiliar
JOHN ADAMS - FILM
John Adams was one of the unlikeliest founding fathers, more swept up in the events of the American Revolution than out in front of them. Because of that, he's been an ideal subject for two ground-level studies of how America came to be: David McCullough's epic biography John Adams, and HBO's seven-part, nearly nine-hour adaptation of same.As portrayed by Paul Giamatti on HBO, Adams is a TRADING PLACES / COMING TO AMERICA In 1983's Trading Places, Eddie Murphy plays a pauper who becomes a prince of finance. In 1988's Coming To America, he plays a prince who masquerades as a pauper to find his ideal wife. Both films cleaned up at the box office during Murphy's Reagan-era heyday, and both let director John Landis channel Frank Capra. Trading Places taps into the farcical prankster side of Capra's personaMILLION DOLLAR BABY
Million Dollar Baby sets the stage for a hard-won triumph-over-adversity tale, but it's too wise about the boxing world to fall for easy victories, or even the redeeming, spirited letdown of the original Rocky.In Eastwood's hands, the standard training montages have a hushed, meditative quality, with a specific emphasis on the scientific half of "the sweet science" that no doubt stems fromKILLER JOE - FILM
Matthew McConaughey is this generation’s Robert Mitchum. This isn’t to say that the prime years McConaughey squandered shirtless in dire romantic comedies put him on equal footing with the iconic star of The Night Of The Hunter and Out Of The Past. But they have the same dangerous magnetism—lithe, relaxed, preternaturally self-assured, and almost feminine in their power to seduce. TARANTINO WAS ONTO SOMETHING WHEN HE TOOK THAT SHOT AT When Quentin Tarantino was doing press for Django Unchained a few years ago, he mentioned that the scenes involving the Ku Klax Klan were inspired, in part, by his imagining what it must have been like for the actors who wore Klansmans’ hoods in Birth Of A Nation. One of those visually impaired riders was played, uncredited, by the young John Ford, who actually holds his hood up so that IN THE UNNERVING SUN CHOKE, A SICK WOMAN SPREADS HER Sarah Hagan has had two memorably substantial roles in her career thus far—both on television, and both over a decade ago. She was the rigorously prim mathlete Millie on Freaks And Geeks, and played Amanda, one of the “potentials” in the final season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Since the early 2000s, Hagan’s mostly been relegated to guest shots and bit parts, but that should change FILM | THE A.V. CLUB Pop culture obsessives writing for the pop culture obsessed. Advertisement Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. This week: With Cruella coming to theaters and Disney+, we’re looking at some ofCOMMUNE - FILM
The Black Bear communal ranch in northern California was partially funded by rock stars who were guilted into ponying up the dough by a handful of enterprising hippies who accused them of "trading off our lifestyle." That kind of defiant idealism was a lofty place for the Black Bears to start, and Jonathan Berman's documentary Commune covers the founders' inevitable descent intoTHE GRUDGE - FILM
Like so many Japanese innovations, the late-'90s genre known as J-horror took its time reaching the West, but now seems poised to become part of the fabric of everyday life. The Ring began the cycle in 2002, bringing American crowds into a remake of what was, in Japan and much of Asia, already a long-running franchise of horror films about a cursed videotape. The Grudge tries to doTHE AVIATOR
By all accounts, the making of Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York was an Olympian undertaking, only slightly less difficult and logistically challenging than the Allied invasion of Normandy. Most mere mortals would take an extended break after such a mammoth effort, but Scorsese has leaped madly back into the fray with The Aviator, another sprawling, two-fisted, larger-than-life American epicSAW - FILM
They collect bones, dine on fresh brains, stitch together plus-size human skins, demonstrate the Seven Deadly Sins with grisly literalism, and delight in prodding existentially tortured detectives by leaving oblique clues at the crime scene. Yet no serial killer has ever been as gimmicky as the bogeyman in James Wan's uproariously idiotic thriller Saw, which plays like a cross between SevenINSOMNIA - FILM
A gimmick is only a gimmick if it's in service of nothing but its own gimmickry. The big twist in Christopher Nolan's astonishing Memento–a thriller that unfolds in reverse chronological order–is that the gimmick suddenly melts away, revealing a deeply considered and profound statement about the slippery nature of memory and the human capacity for self-deception. So it only followsAIRPLANE! - FILM
Before Airplane! came along in 1980, the anything-goes vaudeville aesthetic had more or less died off with the Marx Brothers, which might explain why much of a generation grew up thinking the disaster-movie spoof was the funniest ever made. Not the best comedy ever made, of course, but considered in bulk, nothing could really top the sheer quantity of laughs being offered, even whenGALAXY QUEST
It's been a strange couple of years for the Star Trek franchise. At least since the re-release of the original Star Wars trilogy in 1997, Trek's place in popular culture has seemed considerably less prominent, as two series left the air and the public's attention turned away from the principled humanism of Gene Roddenberry's creation and more toward the mythic vagaries ofOH! CALCUTTA!
Oh! Calcutta!'s on-stage run lasted a remarkable 17 years, but it's still safe to assume that most Americans knew the show largely as fodder for Johnny Carson monologues. Decades before Viagra, Monica Lewinsky, or Brokeback Mountain, Oh! Calcutta! served an instant punchline, a provocative "nudie musical" that delighted in pushing square America's buttons. PLEASE, SOMEONE INTRODUCE DWAYNE JOHNSON TO BETTER DIRECTORS On Monday, the announcement went out that Netflix would be picking up the tab for a new blockbuster thriller from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, called Red Notice. Co-starring Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds, the film looks like surefire crowd-pleasing entertainment, an action-comedy heist flick that will doubtless play to the strengths of its three appealing leads. FILM | THE A.V. CLUB Pop culture obsessives writing for the pop culture obsessed. Advertisement Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. This week: With Cruella coming to theaters and Disney+, we’re looking at some ofCOMMUNE - FILM
The Black Bear communal ranch in northern California was partially funded by rock stars who were guilted into ponying up the dough by a handful of enterprising hippies who accused them of "trading off our lifestyle." That kind of defiant idealism was a lofty place for the Black Bears to start, and Jonathan Berman's documentary Commune covers the founders' inevitable descent intoTHE GRUDGE - FILM
Like so many Japanese innovations, the late-'90s genre known as J-horror took its time reaching the West, but now seems poised to become part of the fabric of everyday life. The Ring began the cycle in 2002, bringing American crowds into a remake of what was, in Japan and much of Asia, already a long-running franchise of horror films about a cursed videotape. The Grudge tries to doTHE AVIATOR
By all accounts, the making of Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York was an Olympian undertaking, only slightly less difficult and logistically challenging than the Allied invasion of Normandy. Most mere mortals would take an extended break after such a mammoth effort, but Scorsese has leaped madly back into the fray with The Aviator, another sprawling, two-fisted, larger-than-life American epicSAW - FILM
They collect bones, dine on fresh brains, stitch together plus-size human skins, demonstrate the Seven Deadly Sins with grisly literalism, and delight in prodding existentially tortured detectives by leaving oblique clues at the crime scene. Yet no serial killer has ever been as gimmicky as the bogeyman in James Wan's uproariously idiotic thriller Saw, which plays like a cross between SevenINSOMNIA - FILM
A gimmick is only a gimmick if it's in service of nothing but its own gimmickry. The big twist in Christopher Nolan's astonishing Memento–a thriller that unfolds in reverse chronological order–is that the gimmick suddenly melts away, revealing a deeply considered and profound statement about the slippery nature of memory and the human capacity for self-deception. So it only followsAIRPLANE! - FILM
Before Airplane! came along in 1980, the anything-goes vaudeville aesthetic had more or less died off with the Marx Brothers, which might explain why much of a generation grew up thinking the disaster-movie spoof was the funniest ever made. Not the best comedy ever made, of course, but considered in bulk, nothing could really top the sheer quantity of laughs being offered, even whenGALAXY QUEST
It's been a strange couple of years for the Star Trek franchise. At least since the re-release of the original Star Wars trilogy in 1997, Trek's place in popular culture has seemed considerably less prominent, as two series left the air and the public's attention turned away from the principled humanism of Gene Roddenberry's creation and more toward the mythic vagaries ofOH! CALCUTTA!
Oh! Calcutta!'s on-stage run lasted a remarkable 17 years, but it's still safe to assume that most Americans knew the show largely as fodder for Johnny Carson monologues. Decades before Viagra, Monica Lewinsky, or Brokeback Mountain, Oh! Calcutta! served an instant punchline, a provocative "nudie musical" that delighted in pushing square America's buttons. PLEASE, SOMEONE INTRODUCE DWAYNE JOHNSON TO BETTER DIRECTORS On Monday, the announcement went out that Netflix would be picking up the tab for a new blockbuster thriller from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, called Red Notice. Co-starring Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds, the film looks like surefire crowd-pleasing entertainment, an action-comedy heist flick that will doubtless play to the strengths of its three appealing leads.SAW - FILM
They collect bones, dine on fresh brains, stitch together plus-size human skins, demonstrate the Seven Deadly Sins with grisly literalism, and delight in prodding existentially tortured detectives by leaving oblique clues at the crime scene. Yet no serial killer has ever been as gimmicky as the bogeyman in James Wan's uproariously idiotic thriller Saw, which plays like a cross between SevenAIRPLANE! - FILM
Before Airplane! came along in 1980, the anything-goes vaudeville aesthetic had more or less died off with the Marx Brothers, which might explain why much of a generation grew up thinking the disaster-movie spoof was the funniest ever made. Not the best comedy ever made, of course, but considered in bulk, nothing could really top the sheer quantity of laughs being offered, even whenGALAXY QUEST
It's been a strange couple of years for the Star Trek franchise. At least since the re-release of the original Star Wars trilogy in 1997, Trek's place in popular culture has seemed considerably less prominent, as two series left the air and the public's attention turned away from the principled humanism of Gene Roddenberry's creation and more toward the mythic vagaries of George Lucas' AVENGERS: ENDGAME REVIEW: A FUN, UNEVEN SCI-FI TEARJERKER Endgame is the true payoff, at least in terms of how (if not how well) it brings everything to a head. Instead of teasing future showdowns, it looks backwards, to what’s come before it—sometimes cleverly, sometimes quite literally, often with the excessive sentimentality of a Very Special Episode.THE TOOTH FAIRY
Watching modern kiddie comedies, it’s generally better for the soul to look for ways in which the glass is half-full rather than half-empty. Case in point: The new Dwayne Johnson vehicle, The Tooth Fairy, doesn’t feature a lot of crotch-slamming, farting, singing CGI rodents, or shrieking children. It does feature Julie Andrews in a welcome return to her usual role as a sweetly benevolentRUN LOLA RUN
Especially since the rise of MTV and the emergence of rapid-fire editing, films have sacrificed substance for the sake of style. Run Lola Run, a new film by German director Tom Tykwer, smartly bypasses the artistic quandary: Rather than weigh substance versus style, Run Lola Run jettisons the former entirely. Franka Potente, the titular Lola, gets a phone call from criminal-boss flunky and TRADING PLACES / COMING TO AMERICA In 1983's Trading Places, Eddie Murphy plays a pauper who becomes a prince of finance. In 1988's Coming To America, he plays a prince who masquerades as a pauper to find his ideal wife. Both films cleaned up at the box office during Murphy's Reagan-era heyday, and both let director John Landis channel Frank Capra. Trading Places taps into the farcical prankster side of Capra's personaJACKIE BROWN
Probably the last thing anyone expected as Quentin Tarantino's follow up to the moment-defining Pulp Fiction was a low-key, leisurely paced film about aging, gracefully and otherwise. Beneath the intricate and entertaining adapted-from-Elmore Leonard heist plot, however, that's what Jackie Brown is—and it's to Tarantino's credit that he makes the film work on both levels. THE ASTONISHING DOCUMENTARY APOLLO 11 SHOOTS THE MOON Shutting down conspiracy theorists probably wasn’t high on director Todd Douglas Miller’s to-do list when he was making the documentary Apollo 11. So just consider it a bonus that his film about the first manned moon landing is so immersive that it feels like it’s happening in real-time on screen—and definitively un-faked. Apollo 11 doesn’t run through the usual grainy footage that IN THE UNNERVING SUN CHOKE, A SICK WOMAN SPREADS HER Sarah Hagan has had two memorably substantial roles in her career thus far—both on television, and both over a decade ago. She was the rigorously prim mathlete Millie on Freaks And Geeks, and played Amanda, one of the “potentials” in the final season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Since the early 2000s, Hagan’s mostly been relegated to guest shots and bit parts, but that should changeTHE AVIATOR
By all accounts, the making of Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York was an Olympian undertaking, only slightly less difficult and logistically challenging than the Allied invasion of Normandy. Most mere mortals would take an extended break after such a mammoth effort, but Scorsese has leaped madly back into the fray with The Aviator, another sprawling, two-fisted, larger-than-life American epicTHE GRUDGE - FILM
Like so many Japanese innovations, the late-'90s genre known as J-horror took its time reaching the West, but now seems poised to become part of the fabric of everyday life. The Ring began the cycle in 2002, bringing American crowds into a remake of what was, in Japan and much of Asia, already a long-running franchise of horror films about a cursed videotape. The Grudge tries to doAIRPLANE! - FILM
Before Airplane! came along in 1980, the anything-goes vaudeville aesthetic had more or less died off with the Marx Brothers, which might explain why much of a generation grew up thinking the disaster-movie spoof was the funniest ever made. Not the best comedy ever made, of course, but considered in bulk, nothing could really top the sheer quantity of laughs being offered, even whenINSOMNIA - FILM
A gimmick is only a gimmick if it's in service of nothing but its own gimmickry. The big twist in Christopher Nolan's astonishing Memento–a thriller that unfolds in reverse chronological order–is that the gimmick suddenly melts away, revealing a deeply considered and profound statement about the slippery nature of memory and the human capacity for self-deception. So it only followsJOHN ADAMS - FILM
John Adams was one of the unlikeliest founding fathers, more swept up in the events of the American Revolution than out in front of them. Because of that, he's been an ideal subject for two ground-level studies of how America came to be: David McCullough's epic biography John Adams, and HBO's seven-part, nearly nine-hour adaptation of same.As portrayed by Paul Giamatti on HBO, Adams is aYOU, THE LIVING
Finished right on time for the new millennium, Roy Andersson’s 2000 opus Songs From The Second Floor captured the apocalyptic mood of the world’s deepest pessimists with mordant black comedy and mind-blowing cinematic tableaux. Andersson’s attitude was so bleak—and the lumpen souls on display so pallid, dreary, and hopeless—that it manifested as gallows humor, his artful way of PLEASE, SOMEONE INTRODUCE DWAYNE JOHNSON TO BETTER DIRECTORS Please, someone introduce Dwayne Johnson to better directors. Alex McLevy. 7/10/19 8:00AM. 371. 3. Screenshot: YouTube. On Monday, the announcement went out that Netflix would be picking up the tab for a new blockbuster thriller from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, called Red Notice. Co-starring Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds, the film lookslike
POINT BREAK
Over the protests of their perpetually exasperated boss—a cop-movie cliché that John C. McGinley heroically resuscitates—Johnny and Pappas follow up on Pappas’ theory that the crooks are surfers and get the beach samples to prove it. A natural athlete, Johnny takes a few surfing lessons from Tyler (Lori Petty) and tries to infiltratethe
THE WIZARD OF LIES RAISES MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT BERNIE The Bernie Madoff story staggers the imagination: In the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time, one man defrauded his family, friends, and thousands of investors for several billion dollars. Such an epic and tragic saga needs some strong characters to pull it off, and director Barry Levinson and Robert De Niro make a somewhat admirable attempt. But it turns out that Bernie Madoff may be too TRADING PLACES / COMING TO AMERICA In 1983's Trading Places, Eddie Murphy plays a pauper who becomes a prince of finance. In 1988's Coming To America, he plays a prince who masquerades as a pauper to find his ideal wife. Both films cleaned up at the box office during Murphy's Reagan-era heyday, and both let director John Landis channel Frank Capra. Trading Places taps into the farcical prankster side of Capra's personaTHE AVIATOR
By all accounts, the making of Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York was an Olympian undertaking, only slightly less difficult and logistically challenging than the Allied invasion of Normandy. Most mere mortals would take an extended break after such a mammoth effort, but Scorsese has leaped madly back into the fray with The Aviator, another sprawling, two-fisted, larger-than-life American epicTHE GRUDGE - FILM
Like so many Japanese innovations, the late-'90s genre known as J-horror took its time reaching the West, but now seems poised to become part of the fabric of everyday life. The Ring began the cycle in 2002, bringing American crowds into a remake of what was, in Japan and much of Asia, already a long-running franchise of horror films about a cursed videotape. The Grudge tries to doAIRPLANE! - FILM
Before Airplane! came along in 1980, the anything-goes vaudeville aesthetic had more or less died off with the Marx Brothers, which might explain why much of a generation grew up thinking the disaster-movie spoof was the funniest ever made. Not the best comedy ever made, of course, but considered in bulk, nothing could really top the sheer quantity of laughs being offered, even whenINSOMNIA - FILM
A gimmick is only a gimmick if it's in service of nothing but its own gimmickry. The big twist in Christopher Nolan's astonishing Memento–a thriller that unfolds in reverse chronological order–is that the gimmick suddenly melts away, revealing a deeply considered and profound statement about the slippery nature of memory and the human capacity for self-deception. So it only followsJOHN ADAMS - FILM
John Adams was one of the unlikeliest founding fathers, more swept up in the events of the American Revolution than out in front of them. Because of that, he's been an ideal subject for two ground-level studies of how America came to be: David McCullough's epic biography John Adams, and HBO's seven-part, nearly nine-hour adaptation of same.As portrayed by Paul Giamatti on HBO, Adams is aYOU, THE LIVING
Finished right on time for the new millennium, Roy Andersson’s 2000 opus Songs From The Second Floor captured the apocalyptic mood of the world’s deepest pessimists with mordant black comedy and mind-blowing cinematic tableaux. Andersson’s attitude was so bleak—and the lumpen souls on display so pallid, dreary, and hopeless—that it manifested as gallows humor, his artful way of PLEASE, SOMEONE INTRODUCE DWAYNE JOHNSON TO BETTER DIRECTORS Please, someone introduce Dwayne Johnson to better directors. Alex McLevy. 7/10/19 8:00AM. 371. 3. Screenshot: YouTube. On Monday, the announcement went out that Netflix would be picking up the tab for a new blockbuster thriller from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, called Red Notice. Co-starring Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds, the film lookslike
POINT BREAK
Over the protests of their perpetually exasperated boss—a cop-movie cliché that John C. McGinley heroically resuscitates—Johnny and Pappas follow up on Pappas’ theory that the crooks are surfers and get the beach samples to prove it. A natural athlete, Johnny takes a few surfing lessons from Tyler (Lori Petty) and tries to infiltratethe
THE WIZARD OF LIES RAISES MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT BERNIE The Bernie Madoff story staggers the imagination: In the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time, one man defrauded his family, friends, and thousands of investors for several billion dollars. Such an epic and tragic saga needs some strong characters to pull it off, and director Barry Levinson and Robert De Niro make a somewhat admirable attempt. But it turns out that Bernie Madoff may be too TRADING PLACES / COMING TO AMERICA In 1983's Trading Places, Eddie Murphy plays a pauper who becomes a prince of finance. In 1988's Coming To America, he plays a prince who masquerades as a pauper to find his ideal wife. Both films cleaned up at the box office during Murphy's Reagan-era heyday, and both let director John Landis channel Frank Capra. Trading Places taps into the farcical prankster side of Capra's persona FILM | THE A.V. CLUB Pop culture obsessives writing for the pop culture obsessed. Advertisement Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. This week: With Cruella coming to theaters and Disney+, we’re looking at some ofSUPER 8 - FILM
Saying more would spoil Super 8’s carefully cultivated aura of surprise, but suffice it to say that what follows won’t be too surprising to those who have seen the films that lend Super 8 their DNA—Spielberg’s and others.That makes Abrams’ film both welcomingly and frustratingly familiar, and more the latter as it goes along. Abrams has a gift for capturing awe and dread—sometimesYOU, THE LIVING
Finished right on time for the new millennium, Roy Andersson’s 2000 opus Songs From The Second Floor captured the apocalyptic mood of the world’s deepest pessimists with mordant black comedy and mind-blowing cinematic tableaux. Andersson’s attitude was so bleak—and the lumpen souls on display so pallid, dreary, and hopeless—that it manifested as gallows humor, his artful way of TRADING PLACES / COMING TO AMERICA In 1983's Trading Places, Eddie Murphy plays a pauper who becomes a prince of finance. In 1988's Coming To America, he plays a prince who masquerades as a pauper to find his ideal wife. Both films cleaned up at the box office during Murphy's Reagan-era heyday, and both let director John Landis channel Frank Capra. Trading Places taps into the farcical prankster side of Capra's personaJOHN ADAMS - FILM
John Adams was one of the unlikeliest founding fathers, more swept up in the events of the American Revolution than out in front of them. Because of that, he's been an ideal subject for two ground-level studies of how America came to be: David McCullough's epic biography John Adams, and HBO's seven-part, nearly nine-hour adaptation of same.As portrayed by Paul Giamatti on HBO, Adams is a IT FOLLOWS, MIDSOMMAR, AND THE TREND OF "ELEVATED HORROR" It’s tough to pinpoint the exact origins of the expression “elevated horror.” But it was sometime around the middle of last decade that someone coined the term to refer to a new renaissance of atmospheric, critically acclaimed scary movies like It Follows, The Babadook, and The Witch.Is it a useful distinction or just a condescending buzzword? FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS Perhaps fitting for a movie about pals looking for sex without commitment, Friend With Benefits wants to have it both ways: It decries the “lies” of Katherine Heigl romantic comedies, yet follows the same script. It shuns the wuss-rock stylings of John Mayer, yet gooses up the soundtrack with a drippy solo acoustic version of “Boys Don’t Cry.” And it affects a cooler-than-thouPOINT BLANK
A tower of lean muscle topped by dead-set eyes and hair that looks like it's been white since his birth, Lee Marvin was never destined to play romantic leads. But while those physical attributes would have relegated other actors to thug roles, Marvin found ways to turn them to his advantage, whether by taking his tough-guy image to the limit, parceling out moments of tenderness, or playingTREASURE PLANET
Even if Robert Louis Stevenson's children's classic Treasure Island begged for another remake, it didn't necessarily beg for a remake set in space. Disney's animated feature Treasure Planet seems to recognize this fact by ignoring it; once established, the setting pretty much drifts in the background without further comment. Set in a universe that owes as much to Ray Bradbury as to TARANTINO WAS ONTO SOMETHING WHEN HE TOOK THAT SHOT AT When Quentin Tarantino was doing press for Django Unchained a few years ago, he mentioned that the scenes involving the Ku Klax Klan were inspired, in part, by his imagining what it must have been like for the actors who wore Klansmans’ hoods in Birth Of A Nation. One of those visually impaired riders was played, uncredited, by the young John Ford, who actually holds his hood up so thatTHE AVIATOR
By all accounts, the making of Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York was an Olympian undertaking, only slightly less difficult and logistically challenging than the Allied invasion of Normandy. Most mere mortals would take an extended break after such a mammoth effort, but Scorsese has leaped madly back into the fray with The Aviator, another sprawling, two-fisted, larger-than-life American epicTHE GRUDGE - FILM
Like so many Japanese innovations, the late-'90s genre known as J-horror took its time reaching the West, but now seems poised to become part of the fabric of everyday life. The Ring began the cycle in 2002, bringing American crowds into a remake of what was, in Japan and much of Asia, already a long-running franchise of horror films about a cursed videotape. The Grudge tries to doAIRPLANE! - FILM
Before Airplane! came along in 1980, the anything-goes vaudeville aesthetic had more or less died off with the Marx Brothers, which might explain why much of a generation grew up thinking the disaster-movie spoof was the funniest ever made. Not the best comedy ever made, of course, but considered in bulk, nothing could really top the sheer quantity of laughs being offered, even whenINSOMNIA - FILM
A gimmick is only a gimmick if it's in service of nothing but its own gimmickry. The big twist in Christopher Nolan's astonishing Memento–a thriller that unfolds in reverse chronological order–is that the gimmick suddenly melts away, revealing a deeply considered and profound statement about the slippery nature of memory and the human capacity for self-deception. So it only follows PLEASE, SOMEONE INTRODUCE DWAYNE JOHNSON TO BETTER DIRECTORS Please, someone introduce Dwayne Johnson to better directors. Alex McLevy. 7/10/19 8:00AM. 371. 3. Screenshot: YouTube. On Monday, the announcement went out that Netflix would be picking up the tab for a new blockbuster thriller from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, called Red Notice. Co-starring Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds, the film lookslike
RUN LOLA RUN
Especially since the rise of MTV and the emergence of rapid-fire editing, films have sacrificed substance for the sake of style. Run Lola Run, a new film by German director Tom Tykwer, smartly bypasses the artistic quandary: Rather than weigh substance versus style, Run Lola Run jettisons the former entirely. Franka Potente, the titular Lola, gets a phone call from criminal-boss flunky and THE BEST MOVIES OF 1997 Hindsight is 20/20. Does it get sharper when the distance between then and now is 20 years? The A.V. Club wasn’t putting together best-of lists in 1997, so it’s impossible to know how this retroactive ranking of the year’s movies might compare with one compiled by the staff at the time—especially since that staff has changed dramatically in the interim. TARANTINO WAS ONTO SOMETHING WHEN HE TOOK THAT SHOT AT When Quentin Tarantino was doing press for Django Unchained a few years ago, he mentioned that the scenes involving the Ku Klax Klan were inspired, in part, by his imagining what it must have been like for the actors who wore Klansmans’ hoods in Birth Of A Nation. One of those visually impaired riders was played, uncredited, by the young John Ford, who actually holds his hood up so that THE WIZARD OF LIES RAISES MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT BERNIE The Bernie Madoff story staggers the imagination: In the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time, one man defrauded his family, friends, and thousands of investors for several billion dollars. Such an epic and tragic saga needs some strong characters to pull it off, and director Barry Levinson and Robert De Niro make a somewhat admirable attempt. But it turns out that Bernie Madoff may be too SUNDANCE WINNER NANCY TOYS WITH OUR SYMPATHY FOR A The “unlikable female protagonist” subgenre finds a worthy new entry in Nancy, the Sundance-winning feature debut of talented writer-director Christina Choe. In an emotionally ambiguous, formally restrained tale of intentionally mistaken identity, Nancy sets its title character up as a lost, lonely woman in an alienating world, then pushes the audience’s sympathy for her as far as it can go.THE AVIATOR
By all accounts, the making of Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York was an Olympian undertaking, only slightly less difficult and logistically challenging than the Allied invasion of Normandy. Most mere mortals would take an extended break after such a mammoth effort, but Scorsese has leaped madly back into the fray with The Aviator, another sprawling, two-fisted, larger-than-life American epicTHE GRUDGE - FILM
Like so many Japanese innovations, the late-'90s genre known as J-horror took its time reaching the West, but now seems poised to become part of the fabric of everyday life. The Ring began the cycle in 2002, bringing American crowds into a remake of what was, in Japan and much of Asia, already a long-running franchise of horror films about a cursed videotape. The Grudge tries to doAIRPLANE! - FILM
Before Airplane! came along in 1980, the anything-goes vaudeville aesthetic had more or less died off with the Marx Brothers, which might explain why much of a generation grew up thinking the disaster-movie spoof was the funniest ever made. Not the best comedy ever made, of course, but considered in bulk, nothing could really top the sheer quantity of laughs being offered, even whenINSOMNIA - FILM
A gimmick is only a gimmick if it's in service of nothing but its own gimmickry. The big twist in Christopher Nolan's astonishing Memento–a thriller that unfolds in reverse chronological order–is that the gimmick suddenly melts away, revealing a deeply considered and profound statement about the slippery nature of memory and the human capacity for self-deception. So it only follows PLEASE, SOMEONE INTRODUCE DWAYNE JOHNSON TO BETTER DIRECTORS Please, someone introduce Dwayne Johnson to better directors. Alex McLevy. 7/10/19 8:00AM. 371. 3. Screenshot: YouTube. On Monday, the announcement went out that Netflix would be picking up the tab for a new blockbuster thriller from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, called Red Notice. Co-starring Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds, the film lookslike
RUN LOLA RUN
Especially since the rise of MTV and the emergence of rapid-fire editing, films have sacrificed substance for the sake of style. Run Lola Run, a new film by German director Tom Tykwer, smartly bypasses the artistic quandary: Rather than weigh substance versus style, Run Lola Run jettisons the former entirely. Franka Potente, the titular Lola, gets a phone call from criminal-boss flunky and THE BEST MOVIES OF 1997 Hindsight is 20/20. Does it get sharper when the distance between then and now is 20 years? The A.V. Club wasn’t putting together best-of lists in 1997, so it’s impossible to know how this retroactive ranking of the year’s movies might compare with one compiled by the staff at the time—especially since that staff has changed dramatically in the interim. TARANTINO WAS ONTO SOMETHING WHEN HE TOOK THAT SHOT AT When Quentin Tarantino was doing press for Django Unchained a few years ago, he mentioned that the scenes involving the Ku Klax Klan were inspired, in part, by his imagining what it must have been like for the actors who wore Klansmans’ hoods in Birth Of A Nation. One of those visually impaired riders was played, uncredited, by the young John Ford, who actually holds his hood up so that THE WIZARD OF LIES RAISES MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT BERNIE The Bernie Madoff story staggers the imagination: In the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time, one man defrauded his family, friends, and thousands of investors for several billion dollars. Such an epic and tragic saga needs some strong characters to pull it off, and director Barry Levinson and Robert De Niro make a somewhat admirable attempt. But it turns out that Bernie Madoff may be too SUNDANCE WINNER NANCY TOYS WITH OUR SYMPATHY FOR A The “unlikable female protagonist” subgenre finds a worthy new entry in Nancy, the Sundance-winning feature debut of talented writer-director Christina Choe. In an emotionally ambiguous, formally restrained tale of intentionally mistaken identity, Nancy sets its title character up as a lost, lonely woman in an alienating world, then pushes the audience’s sympathy for her as far as it can go.STAR TREK - FILM
Mothballed early this decade by a string of increasingly unpopular TV series and films, the venerable Star Trek series hasn’t so much been pulled out of storage with this new film as dusted off, broken down to its most basic parts, streamlined, and sent blazing off at an acute angle from its original course. Directed by J.J. Abrams—it’s his second feature directorial effort after helpingINSOMNIA - FILM
A gimmick is only a gimmick if it's in service of nothing but its own gimmickry. The big twist in Christopher Nolan's astonishing Memento–a thriller that unfolds in reverse chronological order–is that the gimmick suddenly melts away, revealing a deeply considered and profound statement about the slippery nature of memory and the human capacity for self-deception. So it only followsDESPICABLE ME
Until the “creep + orphans = happy family” formula starts demanding abrupt, unconvincing character mutations, Despicable Me is a giddy joy. It takes place in a world seemingly inspired by The Incredibles—the superheroes are missing, but the cartoon physics, crazy devices, and outsized conquer-the-world plots are all in place, ready to set up big action setpieces with a sly sense of humor.YOU, THE LIVING
Finished right on time for the new millennium, Roy Andersson’s 2000 opus Songs From The Second Floor captured the apocalyptic mood of the world’s deepest pessimists with mordant black comedy and mind-blowing cinematic tableaux. Andersson’s attitude was so bleak—and the lumpen souls on display so pallid, dreary, and hopeless—that it manifested as gallows humor, his artful way ofTREASURE PLANET
Even if Robert Louis Stevenson's children's classic Treasure Island begged for another remake, it didn't necessarily beg for a remake set in space. Disney's animated feature Treasure Planet seems to recognize this fact by ignoring it; once established, the setting pretty much drifts in the background without further comment. Set in a universe that owes as much to Ray Bradbury as to THE ASTONISHING DOCUMENTARY APOLLO 11 SHOOTS THE MOON Shutting down conspiracy theorists probably wasn’t high on director Todd Douglas Miller’s to-do list when he was making the documentary Apollo 11. So just consider it a bonus that his film about the first manned moon landing is so immersive that it feels like it’s happening in real-time on screen—and definitively un-faked. Apollo 11 doesn’t run through the usual grainy footage that THE BEST MOVIES OF 1997 Hindsight is 20/20. Does it get sharper when the distance between then and now is 20 years? The A.V. Club wasn’t putting together best-of lists in 1997, so it’s impossible to know how this retroactive ranking of the year’s movies might compare with one compiled by the staff at the time—especially since that staff has changed dramatically in the interim. TRADING PLACES / COMING TO AMERICA In 1983's Trading Places, Eddie Murphy plays a pauper who becomes a prince of finance. In 1988's Coming To America, he plays a prince who masquerades as a pauper to find his ideal wife. Both films cleaned up at the box office during Murphy's Reagan-era heyday, and both let director John Landis channel Frank Capra. Trading Places taps into the farcical prankster side of Capra's persona FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS Perhaps fitting for a movie about pals looking for sex without commitment, Friend With Benefits wants to have it both ways: It decries the “lies” of Katherine Heigl romantic comedies, yet follows the same script. It shuns the wuss-rock stylings of John Mayer, yet gooses up the soundtrack with a drippy solo acoustic version of “Boys Don’t Cry.” And it affects a cooler-than-thou IN THE UNNERVING SUN CHOKE, A SICK WOMAN SPREADS HER Sarah Hagan has had two memorably substantial roles in her career thus far—both on television, and both over a decade ago. She was the rigorously prim mathlete Millie on Freaks And Geeks, and played Amanda, one of the “potentials” in the final season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Since the early 2000s, Hagan’s mostly been relegated to guest shots and bit parts, but that should changeTHE AVIATOR
By all accounts, the making of Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York was an Olympian undertaking, only slightly less difficult and logistically challenging than the Allied invasion of Normandy. Most mere mortals would take an extended break after such a mammoth effort, but Scorsese has leaped madly back into the fray with The Aviator, another sprawling, two-fisted, larger-than-life American epicTHE GRUDGE - FILM
Like so many Japanese innovations, the late-'90s genre known as J-horror took its time reaching the West, but now seems poised to become part of the fabric of everyday life. The Ring began the cycle in 2002, bringing American crowds into a remake of what was, in Japan and much of Asia, already a long-running franchise of horror films about a cursed videotape. The Grudge tries to doAIRPLANE! - FILM
Before Airplane! came along in 1980, the anything-goes vaudeville aesthetic had more or less died off with the Marx Brothers, which might explain why much of a generation grew up thinking the disaster-movie spoof was the funniest ever made. Not the best comedy ever made, of course, but considered in bulk, nothing could really top the sheer quantity of laughs being offered, even whenINSOMNIA - FILM
A gimmick is only a gimmick if it's in service of nothing but its own gimmickry. The big twist in Christopher Nolan's astonishing Memento–a thriller that unfolds in reverse chronological order–is that the gimmick suddenly melts away, revealing a deeply considered and profound statement about the slippery nature of memory and the human capacity for self-deception. So it only follows PLEASE, SOMEONE INTRODUCE DWAYNE JOHNSON TO BETTER DIRECTORS Please, someone introduce Dwayne Johnson to better directors. Alex McLevy. 7/10/19 8:00AM. 371. 3. Screenshot: YouTube. On Monday, the announcement went out that Netflix would be picking up the tab for a new blockbuster thriller from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, called Red Notice. Co-starring Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds, the film lookslike
RUN LOLA RUN
Especially since the rise of MTV and the emergence of rapid-fire editing, films have sacrificed substance for the sake of style. Run Lola Run, a new film by German director Tom Tykwer, smartly bypasses the artistic quandary: Rather than weigh substance versus style, Run Lola Run jettisons the former entirely. Franka Potente, the titular Lola, gets a phone call from criminal-boss flunky and THE BEST MOVIES OF 1997 Hindsight is 20/20. Does it get sharper when the distance between then and now is 20 years? The A.V. Club wasn’t putting together best-of lists in 1997, so it’s impossible to know how this retroactive ranking of the year’s movies might compare with one compiled by the staff at the time—especially since that staff has changed dramatically in the interim. TARANTINO WAS ONTO SOMETHING WHEN HE TOOK THAT SHOT AT When Quentin Tarantino was doing press for Django Unchained a few years ago, he mentioned that the scenes involving the Ku Klax Klan were inspired, in part, by his imagining what it must have been like for the actors who wore Klansmans’ hoods in Birth Of A Nation. One of those visually impaired riders was played, uncredited, by the young John Ford, who actually holds his hood up so that THE WIZARD OF LIES RAISES MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT BERNIE The Bernie Madoff story staggers the imagination: In the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time, one man defrauded his family, friends, and thousands of investors for several billion dollars. Such an epic and tragic saga needs some strong characters to pull it off, and director Barry Levinson and Robert De Niro make a somewhat admirable attempt. But it turns out that Bernie Madoff may be too SUNDANCE WINNER NANCY TOYS WITH OUR SYMPATHY FOR A The “unlikable female protagonist” subgenre finds a worthy new entry in Nancy, the Sundance-winning feature debut of talented writer-director Christina Choe. In an emotionally ambiguous, formally restrained tale of intentionally mistaken identity, Nancy sets its title character up as a lost, lonely woman in an alienating world, then pushes the audience’s sympathy for her as far as it can go.THE AVIATOR
By all accounts, the making of Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York was an Olympian undertaking, only slightly less difficult and logistically challenging than the Allied invasion of Normandy. Most mere mortals would take an extended break after such a mammoth effort, but Scorsese has leaped madly back into the fray with The Aviator, another sprawling, two-fisted, larger-than-life American epicTHE GRUDGE - FILM
Like so many Japanese innovations, the late-'90s genre known as J-horror took its time reaching the West, but now seems poised to become part of the fabric of everyday life. The Ring began the cycle in 2002, bringing American crowds into a remake of what was, in Japan and much of Asia, already a long-running franchise of horror films about a cursed videotape. The Grudge tries to doAIRPLANE! - FILM
Before Airplane! came along in 1980, the anything-goes vaudeville aesthetic had more or less died off with the Marx Brothers, which might explain why much of a generation grew up thinking the disaster-movie spoof was the funniest ever made. Not the best comedy ever made, of course, but considered in bulk, nothing could really top the sheer quantity of laughs being offered, even whenINSOMNIA - FILM
A gimmick is only a gimmick if it's in service of nothing but its own gimmickry. The big twist in Christopher Nolan's astonishing Memento–a thriller that unfolds in reverse chronological order–is that the gimmick suddenly melts away, revealing a deeply considered and profound statement about the slippery nature of memory and the human capacity for self-deception. So it only follows PLEASE, SOMEONE INTRODUCE DWAYNE JOHNSON TO BETTER DIRECTORS Please, someone introduce Dwayne Johnson to better directors. Alex McLevy. 7/10/19 8:00AM. 371. 3. Screenshot: YouTube. On Monday, the announcement went out that Netflix would be picking up the tab for a new blockbuster thriller from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, called Red Notice. Co-starring Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds, the film lookslike
RUN LOLA RUN
Especially since the rise of MTV and the emergence of rapid-fire editing, films have sacrificed substance for the sake of style. Run Lola Run, a new film by German director Tom Tykwer, smartly bypasses the artistic quandary: Rather than weigh substance versus style, Run Lola Run jettisons the former entirely. Franka Potente, the titular Lola, gets a phone call from criminal-boss flunky and THE BEST MOVIES OF 1997 Hindsight is 20/20. Does it get sharper when the distance between then and now is 20 years? The A.V. Club wasn’t putting together best-of lists in 1997, so it’s impossible to know how this retroactive ranking of the year’s movies might compare with one compiled by the staff at the time—especially since that staff has changed dramatically in the interim. TARANTINO WAS ONTO SOMETHING WHEN HE TOOK THAT SHOT AT When Quentin Tarantino was doing press for Django Unchained a few years ago, he mentioned that the scenes involving the Ku Klax Klan were inspired, in part, by his imagining what it must have been like for the actors who wore Klansmans’ hoods in Birth Of A Nation. One of those visually impaired riders was played, uncredited, by the young John Ford, who actually holds his hood up so that THE WIZARD OF LIES RAISES MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT BERNIE The Bernie Madoff story staggers the imagination: In the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time, one man defrauded his family, friends, and thousands of investors for several billion dollars. Such an epic and tragic saga needs some strong characters to pull it off, and director Barry Levinson and Robert De Niro make a somewhat admirable attempt. But it turns out that Bernie Madoff may be too SUNDANCE WINNER NANCY TOYS WITH OUR SYMPATHY FOR A The “unlikable female protagonist” subgenre finds a worthy new entry in Nancy, the Sundance-winning feature debut of talented writer-director Christina Choe. In an emotionally ambiguous, formally restrained tale of intentionally mistaken identity, Nancy sets its title character up as a lost, lonely woman in an alienating world, then pushes the audience’s sympathy for her as far as it can go.STAR TREK - FILM
Mothballed early this decade by a string of increasingly unpopular TV series and films, the venerable Star Trek series hasn’t so much been pulled out of storage with this new film as dusted off, broken down to its most basic parts, streamlined, and sent blazing off at an acute angle from its original course. Directed by J.J. Abrams—it’s his second feature directorial effort after helpingINSOMNIA - FILM
A gimmick is only a gimmick if it's in service of nothing but its own gimmickry. The big twist in Christopher Nolan's astonishing Memento–a thriller that unfolds in reverse chronological order–is that the gimmick suddenly melts away, revealing a deeply considered and profound statement about the slippery nature of memory and the human capacity for self-deception. So it only followsDESPICABLE ME
Until the “creep + orphans = happy family” formula starts demanding abrupt, unconvincing character mutations, Despicable Me is a giddy joy. It takes place in a world seemingly inspired by The Incredibles—the superheroes are missing, but the cartoon physics, crazy devices, and outsized conquer-the-world plots are all in place, ready to set up big action setpieces with a sly sense of humor.YOU, THE LIVING
Finished right on time for the new millennium, Roy Andersson’s 2000 opus Songs From The Second Floor captured the apocalyptic mood of the world’s deepest pessimists with mordant black comedy and mind-blowing cinematic tableaux. Andersson’s attitude was so bleak—and the lumpen souls on display so pallid, dreary, and hopeless—that it manifested as gallows humor, his artful way ofTREASURE PLANET
Even if Robert Louis Stevenson's children's classic Treasure Island begged for another remake, it didn't necessarily beg for a remake set in space. Disney's animated feature Treasure Planet seems to recognize this fact by ignoring it; once established, the setting pretty much drifts in the background without further comment. Set in a universe that owes as much to Ray Bradbury as to THE ASTONISHING DOCUMENTARY APOLLO 11 SHOOTS THE MOON Shutting down conspiracy theorists probably wasn’t high on director Todd Douglas Miller’s to-do list when he was making the documentary Apollo 11. So just consider it a bonus that his film about the first manned moon landing is so immersive that it feels like it’s happening in real-time on screen—and definitively un-faked. Apollo 11 doesn’t run through the usual grainy footage that THE BEST MOVIES OF 1997 Hindsight is 20/20. Does it get sharper when the distance between then and now is 20 years? The A.V. Club wasn’t putting together best-of lists in 1997, so it’s impossible to know how this retroactive ranking of the year’s movies might compare with one compiled by the staff at the time—especially since that staff has changed dramatically in the interim. TRADING PLACES / COMING TO AMERICA In 1983's Trading Places, Eddie Murphy plays a pauper who becomes a prince of finance. In 1988's Coming To America, he plays a prince who masquerades as a pauper to find his ideal wife. Both films cleaned up at the box office during Murphy's Reagan-era heyday, and both let director John Landis channel Frank Capra. Trading Places taps into the farcical prankster side of Capra's persona FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS Perhaps fitting for a movie about pals looking for sex without commitment, Friend With Benefits wants to have it both ways: It decries the “lies” of Katherine Heigl romantic comedies, yet follows the same script. It shuns the wuss-rock stylings of John Mayer, yet gooses up the soundtrack with a drippy solo acoustic version of “Boys Don’t Cry.” And it affects a cooler-than-thou IN THE UNNERVING SUN CHOKE, A SICK WOMAN SPREADS HER Sarah Hagan has had two memorably substantial roles in her career thus far—both on television, and both over a decade ago. She was the rigorously prim mathlete Millie on Freaks And Geeks, and played Amanda, one of the “potentials” in the final season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Since the early 2000s, Hagan’s mostly been relegated to guest shots and bit parts, but that should change* The A.V. Club
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Caroline Siede
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One of the reasons there are so few romantic comedy sequels is because we don’t always want to think about what would realistically happen after “happily ever after.” To address such concerns, the follow-up to Netflix’s 2018 hit _To All The Boys I’ve LovedBefore_
cleverly gives just that to its teen protagonist. In the first film, unassuming high schooler Lara Jean Covey (Lana Condor) saw her life spiral out of control when a series of love letters were mailed to recipients who were never meant to read them. To minimize the fallout, Lara Jean began “fake dating” dreamy lacrosse player Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo). Those phony dates turned into real feelings, of course, and the first film ends with a sweeping scene of Lara Jean and Peter finally admitting their mutual affection. _P.S. I Love You _picks up not long afterward, with Lara Jean determined to make every moment of her burgeoning relationship with Peter as picture perfect as its beginning. Yet their promise to never break each other’s hearts is about as ominous as a detective bragging he’s three days from retirement. _To_ _All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love You_ tackles appreciably new ground for the rom-com genre as it digs into the everyday complexities of Lara Jean and Peter’s high school relationship. When it returns to sweeping romantic intrigue, however, it feels like a pale imitation of better romantic films—including its predecessor.Advertisement
Movie Review
Movie Review
TO ALL THE BOYS: P.S. I STILL LOVE YOUB-
B-
TO ALL THE BOYS: P.S. I STILL LOVE YOUDIRECTOR
Michael Fimognari
RUNTIME
101 minutes
RATING
Not Rated
LANGUAGE
English
CAST
Lana Condor, Noah Centineo, Jordan Fisher, Anna Cathcart, Janel Parrish, John Corbett, Sarayu Blue, Ross Butler, Madeleine Arthur, Emilija Baranc, Trezzo Mahoro, Holland TaylorAVAILABILITY
Netflix February 12
Adapted from a trilogy of books by Jenny Han, the _To All The Boys _series has proven remarkably effective at zeroing in on the realistic hurts and squabbles of high school. In the first film, it was sore feelings over bus seating. Here, it’s the implications of who brings the pizza to Lara Jean’s party. If someone else does, it sort of seems like Lara Jean threw the event with them and not him, Peter jealously points out. That’s exactly the sort of thing that feels monumental in a high school relationship, but which few teen stories dramatize for fear that it’s too low-stakes. _P.S. I Still Love You _is at its best when it’s_ _exploring its characters’ internal anxieties, rather than external conflicts. New to dating and keenly aware that her more experienced boyfriend has already had all his “firsts” with his ex-girlfriend/her ex-bestie Gen (Emilija Baranac), Lara Jean just can’t get out of her own head. Even—and maybe especially—in moments where she’s supposed to be lost inpassion.
_P.S. I Still Love You_ respects the emotional intelligence of its teenage characters, who talk about their problems earnestly and honestly. Yet the film can be a little too nice for its own good. That’s especially a problem when Lara Jean is unexpectedly reunited with her childhood crush and the recipient of one of her love letters, John Ambrose McClaren (_Rent: Live_’s
Jordan Fisher, replacing Jordan Burtchett from a now non-canonical mid-credits appearance in the first film). Lara Jean finds his sweet, non-threatening dweebiness a welcome alternative to the complexities of dating Peter. Yet given that kindness is also one of Peter’s defining qualities, the distinction between the two isn’t that sharp. Despite Fisher’s considerable charms, John Ambrose comes across a little bland. The conflict between Peter and Lara Jean, who volunteer together at the world’s most Instagrammable retirement home, grows more generic as the film goes on. All three points of this love triangle could use a bit more edge. That’s also true of Lara Jean’s friendship with spunky septuagenarian Stormy (a wasted Holland Taylor), and a subplot about the dating life of her widowed father (John Corbett). At times, _P.S. I Still Love You _seems as anxious about its relationship to its devoted fanbase as Lara Jean seems about hers with Peter. As such, it’s too frequently toothless.Advertisement
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Admittedly, that kind of thing matters less for a film designed to be (repeatedly) enjoyed in the comfort of your own home. The pleasures of this series come down to the charming chemistry of its cast and the style of its world, both of which are well served here. Director Michael Fimognari, who was the cinematographer of the first film, maintains original director Susan Johnson’s Wes-Anderson-meets-Pinterest look while adding in overhead montages of food prep that call to mind the soothing appeal of a Tasty video. In his feature debut, Fimognari attempts a few showy sequences that feel out of place, like a dramatic double dolly shot down a high school hallway. Even so, it’s refreshing to see a Netflix rom-com adopt an actual visual style.Advertisement
With a third film already in post-production, _P.S. I Still Love You _is a bit of a placeholder chapter. There are barely-there new characters (including one portrayed by _13 Reasons Why_’s Ross Butler)
and underused players from the original (especially Lara Jean’s sisters) who will presumably get more focus in the final installment. Though it’s once again welcome to see a rom-com dig into the specificity of the Korean-American experience and to explore topics like sex and dating from the perspective of a teenage girl, for the most part _P.S. I Still Love You _is a pleasant distraction without a lot of payoff. It doesn’t tarnish the original, but it never quite rises to its heights either.Caroline Siede
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Contributor, _The A.V. Club._ Caroline Siede is a pop culture critic in Chicago, where the cold never bothers her anyway. Her interests include superhero movies, feminist theory, and Jane Austen novels.SHARE THIS STORY
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