Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story Is A Powerful Piece of Filmmaking

In many ways, it feels like Noah Baumbach has been working his whole career to get to the point where he could make Marriage Story. Throughout his nearly quarter-of-a-century of making movies, fractured families have been a recurring element across a number of his works. The concept of people you're supposed to be closest to having deep-seated problems with one another is one that Baumbach's explored plenty of times beforehand, but never in as insightful of a manner as he has with Marriage Story. Here, the scope is grander, the characters are richer in detail and the emotional moments really hit you in both the gut and the heart. 1995 Noah Baumbach couldn't have made a movie like Marriage Story that so unflinchingly tackles the complexities of going through with a  divorce. Turns out, waiting for him to be ready as a filmmaker was more than worth the wait.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote Is Messy But Wistfully Thoughtful

Sometimes, myths can become larger than the men they're about and the same is true of certain films, especially when they're films like The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. This Terry Gilliam directorial effort has been through hell and back in its trek to the big screen with numerous difficulties emerging preventing it from becoming a finished film. A version of this project even started filming at the turn of century with Johnny Depp in the lead role before the plug eventually got pulled. For so long, it seemed like this endeavor was doomed to be just a legend of filmmaking gone awry rather than an actual movie. However, in April 2019, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote finally got released to theaters! It's real! It's an actual thing you can watch!

Too Many Lifeless Aspects Drag The Dead Don't Die Down

In the quiet small American town of Centerville, some strange occurrences are happening. Just when it's supposed to be night outside, the sun is shining as if it's the middle of the day. Animals are vanishing. Did I mention that polar ice caps are being so severely fracked that it's adversely affecting the Earth's axis? Yep, lots and lots of strange occurrences happening around Centerville. Police officers Ronald Peterson (Adam Driver) and Cliff Robertson (Bill Murray) are perturbed by such events and they only become even more concerned once two local citizens are slaughtered in a vicious fashion. Only a zombie could do such a slaying. Oh boy. This is not going to end well.

Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman Is A Triumphant Examination Of Past & Present Racism

Far too many American movies dealing with racism in America's past do so, usually with a Caucasian white savior protagonist in tow, with the purpose of reassuring white moviegoers that "Everything is fine now, look how much better things are now compared to the past!" Horrors of the past and the lives of the disenfranchised who had to endure the brunt of such horrors are reduced to being simply a way to reassure privileged members of present-day society that everything related to race in the modern world is cool, everything is fine. That's certainly not the case with Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman, which is all about using a story about a black cop infiltrating a KKK charter to explore how racist horrors of the past still heavily influence a modern-day world where bigotry runs rampant.

"We're Up All Night For Good Fun, We're Up All Night To Get (Logan) Lucky"

The South and its associated culture (and other parts of the country north of the South that hew closely to said country) are weird. Anything to do with redneck stuff is inherently just a little bit off-kilter. Not saying there aren't strange facets of the upper-crust life too (why are fish eggs considered a culinary delicacy among the wealthy again?) but having lived in Texas for over two decades, I'm well-aware of how a large share of the little details of everyday life around here really are just bizarre like certain colloquialisms, fashion traits, and societal faux pas. Filmmakers like Richard Linklater have used that truth heavily in their own films and now Logan Lucky is the newest film to utilize the inherent oddness of Southern customs as a backbone for entertaining cinema.

And No One Dared Disturb The Sound Of Silence

As a Christian, my biggest complaint with so-called faith-based Christian movies like God's Not Dead is...well, I don't just have one complaint with these atrocious movies, the worst of the bunch are pretty much top-to-bottom disasters. But in terms of complaints directly connected to my faith, these films claim to try to explore real-world struggles of Christianity but don't seem to exist in the real world. In an effort to be as squeaky-clean as possible, actual topics of hardship are rarely explored in these Christian films. More adult concepts are off-limits except for rare sequences like Kirk Cameron bashing in his porn-riddled computer in Fireproof and any of the tepid dramatic situations are easily resolved in a tidy little bow.

Midnight Special Review

Midnight Special is the sort of movie that hits the ground running and never looks back. The story begins in media res and from there backstory is doled out in small doses throughout numerous points. Jeff Nichols shows some obvious ingenuity when it comes to concocting a cohesive narrative with this approach; he's well aware that numerous elements of the plot will be foreign to all viewers and require proper explanation. But he's also not willing to sacrifice the thrust of the narrative so he can have an entire shoehorned in scene that overwhelms the audience with answers. Instead, he lets the tale live and breathe, with clarification coming to light when needed while other aspects of the movie remain satisfyingly ambiguous.

While We're Young Review

Hip To Be Square

Ben Stiller has built an entire career on playing the casual everyman, the kind of guy who thrives on routine and doesn't want irregularities or anomalies interrupting his existence. There are certainly exceptions in his vast filmography (namely in his character Derek Zoolander and his Anchorman cameo where delivers the immortal line "Buenos noches bitches!"), but that kind of calm yet easily flustered persona has dominated his work in recent years. It's the kind of role he reprises in While We're Young, though this particular feature allows for a bit more depth to be applied to this archetype.

And Now The Story Of A Jane Fonda Led Family, Who Lost Everything, And The One Son Who Had No Choice, But To Keep Them All Together...

As Jason Bateman basks in the financial glory and critical failure of Identity Thief, he now is gearing up for a project that steers more towards the dramatic side, though fear not! Jokes about sex, boobs and affairs still abound. Director Shawn Levy (whose bipolar career has brought us the charming Night At The Museum and the forgettable The Internship) handles this one, which I have a feeling is a bit more dramatic and heady than the slightly generic trailer indicates. Still, the cast (which has Adam Driver in it!! Hell yeah!!!) is solid enough to keep my hopes on this one, which comes out in theaters everywhere September 12th.