Discovering good movies, one bad movie at a time

I wanted to feature a certain religiously fraught sci-fi series this month, but SOMEONE had to go on strike, so you’ll all have to wait until March next year. Instead, you are going to get a column about the Cathars. As always, I am open to suggestions, but 2025 (yes, 2025) is filling up fast! Here is a story from my father’s childhood. Fr. Michael Malloy, O.P., was teaching catechism […]

To be fair to the makers of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, from Marvel Studios capo Kevin Feige to director/co-writer Ryan Coogler and all the way on, they were facing a no-win situation. Chadwick Boseman, the charismatic star of the 2018 Zeitgeist-dominating smash hit Black Panther, died tragically young of cancer at the age of 43 in the summer of 2020, not very long before a sequel to that film was […]

Author’s note, March 2024: I’m leaving my original rating intact, but in retrospect, I was hedging against the fear that Dune: Part Two, if and when it was made, would let this film down. As such a thing did not end up happening, consider this to be a 4-star review in all but name. When presented with a largely successful attempt at filming a book that has defeated as many […]

The simple part first: the massive, monumental beast of a comic book movie released under the gravely ponderous title Zack Snyder’s Justice League is better in basically every single way that can be quantified than just plain Justice League from 2017, which is both fundamentally the same thing and so wildly, indescribably different that it feels insane to even consider them basically just recuts of the same footage (which is […]

Movie awards shows always seem on the brink of extinction, at least as televised viewing. Non-comedian Millennial hosts, no hosts, format changes — nothing ever seems to make it that much different from previous years. Despite the forever ancient music, bored-as-hell hosts, and general sameness of it all, I always get pulled back in for a watch, though usually with less awe and more snark. Come with me as we […]

Aquaman is the dorkiest fucking movie. I think I slightly loved it. This is a film that luxuriates in all of the absolute dumbest bullshit of superhero comics: the overwrought dialogue in which words like Cylinder and Trench are repeatedly declaimed with unmistakable Capital Letters; unbelievably squirrelly concept like sharks with laser cannons on their heads treated with absolute awestruck wonder by the solemn low angle; a plot that starts […]

Another year ends, deep in the depths of one of the most banal seasons for Oscarbait in recent memory. It is a bit strange, even upsetting to me, that I’m kind of to substantially excited for some of the popcorn movies coming out this months – ones I should know more than to be excited for, even – and the awards movies, with one bright shining exception, look pretty whiffy. […]

So, what do you think used to be the most boring comic book movie ever made? Superman Returns? Iron Man 2? Green Lantern? The Amazing Spider-Man? X-Men: Apocalypse? Anyway, it doesn’t actually matter, because now we have Justice League, and that settles it. For right now (and I’m not optimistic enough to suppose it will stay this way for more than a couple of years), this is it: the most impressively, […]

Ana Lily Amirpour’s 2014 A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night was just about every last little thing I want out of a directorial debut: technically adept and hugely gorgeous, full of left-field concepts, and just limited enough in some really obvious ways that it was easy to hope that her next one would be even better. Well, I’ve finally seen the next one, The Bad Batch, which first saw […]

I will say this on behalf of the beleaguered remake Conan the Barbarian: it earns the heck out of its R rating. More blood spilled in more thoughtfully creative ways than you’re apt to see outside of a torture film, and topless women – oh! so many topless women! – there are no fewer than seven poor spear-carrying actresses all playing characters collectively named “Topless Wenches”. Really, I could let […]