The Last Full Measure Employs Half-Measures When It Comes To Storytelling

The Last Full Measure may become my go-to example of a movie that's focused on the wrong character. Much like Million Dollar Arm or The Red Sea Diving Resort, The Last Full Measure has compelling side characters who should be the lead characters of their stories. Instead, Measure, like Arm and Resort, shines a spotlight on a generic white dude protagonist. Such a character will only prove interesting to studio executives who spend nights fretting about focus group responses. In the process, Measure undercuts its own intended message of raising awareness for veterans that have been forgotten.

The Banker Is a Disappointingly Rushed and Paint-By-Numbers Affair

Ever since he was a kid, Bernard Garrett (Anthony Mackie) was all about challenging the status quo. A math genius, Garrett has long harbored dreams of being a real estate broker. That's not an occupation usually filled by Black people in the mid-20th century. But again, Garrett's a rebel and he's not about to let the racist status quo hold him back. Eventually, Garrett, after pairing up with Joe Morris (Samuel L. Jackson), begins to create an empire of real estate, one that most people aren't aware they control. That's because Garrett and Morris have had Matt Steiner (Nicholas Hoult) pose as the owner of their business to white investors and fellow business owners. Steiner is the face of the operation but Garrett and Morris are the ones controlling all the cards.

Spider-Man: Far From Home Is The Good Version of EuroTrip

AVENGERS: ENDGAME SPOILERS AHEAD. NO SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME SPOILERS THOUGH, I PROMISE

Brie Larson's Directorial Debut Unicorn Store Is A Totally Unique Delight

Unicorn Store is all about Kit (Brie Larson), a young artist who is struggling with the whole conventional grown-up routine. Her relationship with her parents, Gladys (Joan Cusack) and Gene (Bradley Whitford), is a bit strained, her art is constantly looked down upon and she feels like she's not living up to what her peers have accomplished. Seeking to correct this, she receives a job making copies of old magazines at a standard advertising agency. It's the kind of normal grown-up job she's typically avoided, but Kit has decided now is the time to put away childish things. At least, that's what she thinks until she gets told by The Salesman (Samuel L. Jackson) that she has the chance to own her very own unicorn.

Captain Marvel Has A Great Mixture of Cosmic Weirdness And Character-Driven Poignancy

Remember how twelve years ago Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer turned Galactus into a gigantic cloud because the prospect of doing a comic book accurate version of the gigantic space God in a purple hat was apparently too goofy for a live-action movie? Well, welcome to March 2019, where the modern cinema scene is so immersed in oddball comic book cosmic details that Captain Marvel can open, with no introductory text crawl or some expository voice-over narration, with its titular lead superhero living a day-to-day life on the alien planet Hala under the names Vers while Academy Award nominee Jude Law portrays her mentor who talks about the "Kree Supreme Intellegence" and warns his pupil about the dangers of shape-shifting Skrull aliens.

Glass Is An Ambitious Follow-Up To Unbreakable And Split, For Better And For Worse

Just like most items that get sold on TV infomercials, Glass offers viewers the chance to get two things for the price of one. In this case, you get both an Unbreakable sequel and a Split sequel in one movie! This means M. Night Shyamalan's long in development follow-up to his 2000 motion picture Unbreakable has finally come to fruition, an exciting proposition for many including myself given that I consider Unbreakable to be Shyamalan's best work as a filmmaker. Glass does not reach the heights of either the excellent Unbreakable or the pretty good Split, but it does work as a solid film on its own merits, though it is one that can't help but feel messy in some key respects that keep it from being truly superheroic.

The Disastrous Life Itself Is Complex In Structure But Deadly Dull In The Details

Perhaps you've heard of the movie Life Itself. Maybe you saw the advertising for its September 2018 theatrical release or maybe you've only been exposed to it via ads on the Amazon Prime section of the Amazon website or there's a good chance your only exposure to Life Itself has been by hearing a loved one trying to recount its labyrinthine plot. There are many ways to be exposed to Life Itself but merely hearing about it or seeing a poster for it is nothing compared to actually watching the movie. This is a tragic trainwreck of a feature film, one that sees a murderer's row of actors get put to use on a film whose thematic substance is about as thin as roadkill on a Texas highway. 

With A Story And Cast This Good, No Wonder Jackie Brown Is So Thoroughly Entertaining

We all know how much Quentin Tarantino loves making movies that extensively pay homage to genres of cinema that proved highly influential to him while also putting his own spin on said genres, it's his own trademark as a filmmaker. While I've heard Jackie Brown frequently referred to as Tarantino doing a homage to blaxploitation cinema of the 1970's, I wouldn't quite classify it as occupying that specific region of filmmaking beyond the font used for the title and of course the casting of Pam Grier in the titular lead role. Like another 1990's movie I reviewed recently, Miller's Crossing, Jackie Brown actually skews closer to 1940's movies like The Big Sleep involving a lead character of questionable morals trying to keep their head above water among numerous intersecting storylines.

There's Too Much Ho-Hum In A Movie Like xXx: Return of Xander Cage That Should Be All Vroom Vroom

He's back. You all thought he was dead but nope, Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) has just been using his extreme sports skills to help poor people in foreign countries get the ability to watch Soccer matches on TV. But it looks like his time off the grid is coming to a close when his former boss, Augustus Eugene Gibbons (Samuel L .Jackson), is killed by a falling a satellite. Jane Marke (Toni Collette) doesn't believe this was an accident, in fact, she knows this was the work of someone tampering with a government device called Pandora's Box, that allows a single person to control any satellite in existence. Obviously, the only way to stop this threat is by making heavy use of Xander Cage's extreme sports skills.

The Hitman's Bodyguard Is Paint-By-Numbers Action Fare But At Least The Two Leads Are Fun

Considering Samuel L. Jackson has been a prominent figure of American cinema for nearly a quarter-of-a-century now and also considering that Ryan Reynolds has become (after a couple of big box office duds that seemed to suggest he might not get there) Hollywood's go-to leading man thanks to the rousing success of Deadpool, it feels like it was just about inevitable that the two would star in a movie together. They've managed to do just that with director Patrick Hughes (the guy who directed the third Expendables movie) new movie, The Hitman's Bodyguard, an R-rated action film that allows both Reynolds and Jackson to drop all the buckets of profanity and hardcore violence that their past biggest movies are known for.

Fun, Style And Boldness, Not To Mention Some Great Acting..Ya Get It All In Pulp Fiction

Watching Pulp Fiction for the first time was a fascinating experience on multiple levels but I was particularly astounded to watch it and discover just how many moments from assorted pieces of pop culture I'd consumed over the years were, in fact, direct references to this movie. Little jokes in Space Jam and the Simpsons episode 22 Short Films About Springfield immediately come to my mind as examples of this while it's obvious that the entire indie movie scene of the second half of the 1990's was heavily influenced by the way Pulp Fiction wedged its way into the zeitgeist. Quentin Tarantino's 1994 masterpiece became a pop culture touchstone practically overnight, but 23 years later, it's amazing to watch the movie removed from its initial hype and discover that there very much is a great movie nestled in here.

Do The Right Thing And Watch Spike Lee's 1989 Masterpiece

One of the biggest takeaways I have about Do The Right Thing is that its entire climax (which hinges on an unarmed African-American man being killed by a police officer via a chokehold) feels chillingly relevant today. My other big takeaway is that Spike Lee's 1989 film Do The Right Thing is an extraordinary piece of cinema, a motion picture that fleshes out the array of inhabitants in one neighborhood and makes the location feel like an entire world. This wasn't the first Spike Lee directed movie to really take off (the guy had even hosted SNL prior to this), but it's so easy to see why Do The Right Thing took Lee to the next level of stardom.

70's Tinged Monster Mayhem Turns Out To Be A Lot Of Fun In Kong: Skull Island

Far too often, remakes and reboots find themselves being merely repeats of the original films they're attempting to remake and/or reboot, to the point where you're left wondering "Why did they even remake this? Couldn't I have just stayed home and watch the original movie instead?" Thankfully, the newest King Kong adventure, Kong: Skull Island, avoids being just a rehash of well-known moments from past Kong movies. No Empire State Building, dinosaurs, movie crew or "Twas beauty that killed the beast" to be found here, much to my personal happiness. Instead, we get an all-new period setting, story and group of characters to follow, though they do retain the loveable nature of Kong himself, of course.

To Look Upon I Am Not Your Negro Is To Look Upon The Horrors Of American Society

James Baldwin has got to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, a man whose perspective on the struggles of African-Americans through this century and how it relates to centuries-old oppression is revered throughout the literary world as a crowning achievement and a vital look into the psyche of the disenfranchised. Tragically, I have been unfamiliar with his pieces of writing, though the Oscar-nominated documentary I Am Not Your Negro offered up a prime opportunity for me to get more acquainted with this prolific author and the words he's weaved on racial struggles in America.

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children Is Generic Even By Modern-Day Tim Burton Movie Standards

While dabbling in some weird-ish fantasy oriented imagery and having the requisite outsider protagonist that have been hallmarks of Tim Burton's work for decades now, Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children may be one of the most generic films to come from the director, right alongside that Planet Of The Apes remake he did back in 2001. Don't mistake generic inherently for "worst", Miss Peregrine is most certainly better than Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, the defensive nadir of Burton's work as a director, but it does feel like any sort of identity he usually brings with him to his work has been sanded off.

The Legend Of Tarzan Review

At this point, I'm as tired as big-budget blockbusters this summer sucking as much as anything else in my life. Sizzling hot Texas weather always make this time of the year one that I wish could just speed right along, but with dismal movies like Warcraft, Alice Through The Looking Glass and Independence Day: Resurgence roaming around theaters, well, it's making my yearly endurance of summer all the more difficult to manage. The Legend Of Tarzan, despite the notable pedigrees of the cast (seriously, Samuel L. Jackson, Djimon Hounsou and Christoph Waltz are incredibly talented individuals) and crew it's working with, is yet another dismal motion picture that has me begging for Labor Day to get here sooner rather than later.

Snakes On A Plane Review (Classic Write-Up)

The fervor surrounding Snakes On A Planes upon its initial theatrical release is, in hindsight, kind of extraordinary. All of the social platforms we use in frequent capacity today were either nonexistent or still in their infancy (keep in mind, when Snakes On A Plane came out in August 2006, Twitter was only a month old and Tumblr was six months away from existing at all), yet, this film spread like wildfire across the web. It wasn't the first feature film to garner the intense interest of the denizens of the interwebs, but its memorably outrageous title made it a kid of online phenomenon like few other films at the time.

The Hateful Eight Review

In his past two movies, Quentin Tarantino went wider in scale than he ever had before, allowing Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained to depict the time period their stories were set in an appropriately sweeping manner. One got a sense of the scale of depravity that Nazi's and slave owners in these movies were inflicting on individuals via the scope that each plot possessed. Now, with his newest film, The Hateful Eight, Tarantino goes smaller, much much smaller. Much more in the vein of Reservoir Dogs, The Hateful Eight sticks to one location for the majority of its run time and centers itself on eight morally dubious individuals existing a few years after the Civil War has concluded. And none of these eight fellows can be trusted.

Unbreakable Review (Classic Write-Up)

Break Away

When I saw Unfriended this past weekend, I was shocked to see a trailer I (GASP) hadn't seen seen on the internet beforehand. The trailer was for The Visit, a found-footage(?) horror film from M. Night Shaymalan that was chock full of stupidity and terrible dialogue (the best bad line is easily "Would get into the oven to clean it?", which is delivered in a way that briefly makes it seem like the sentence will conclude with the word over) and reminded me of how far M. Night Shyamalan had fallen in recent years.

Kingsman: The Secret Service Review

On His Kingman's Secret Service

There's a self-referential streak in Kingsman: The Secret Service surrounding the tone of spy movies in the past and present that starts with Harry Hart (Colin Firth) feeling current spy movies are too serious for his taste. It's an interesting gag, mainly because Kingsman feels like it's combination of the older James Bond films (which director Matthew Vaughn heavily hearkened in his last movie X-Men: First Class) and the more entries in the spy genre. The over-the-top style and more light hearted tone found in earlier spy films is found in spades, as is the sleek modern action of more recent adventures starring the likes of Jason Bourne.