Under the Silver Lake Is The Poor Man's Inherent Vice

Under the Silver Lake is a movie all about hidden messages, but none of those messages are as hiden as the movie itself, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival last May before a prospective June 2018 release. But then the film reviewed mixed marks at the festival and its distributor, A24, delayed it to December 7, 2018. That day came and went without a trace of Under the Silver Lake. What happened? Was Under the Silver Lake doomed to just sit on a shelf somewhere? Then the film got a brief (read: three day long) theatrical run in April 2019 before dropping unceremoniously on Amazon Streaming last week. It's been a long journey for Under the Silver Lake and for some, this highly unusual motion picture will have been more than worth the wait. For me, it turned out to be a movie that would have been underwhelming even if I had been waiting just five minutes for it to arrive.

Cover Your Mouth And Don't Inhale Breathe

For Robin Cavendish (Andrew Garfield), life was peaches and cream, especially once Diana Blacker (Claire Foy) came into the picture. The two met at a croquet match and after a brief montage that doesn't allow the viewer to properly process how or why these two would work together as a couple, they're married! No wait, they're also expecting a child! Lots of stuff is happening in these opening scenes. Something else tremendous occurs for the couple when Robin is stricken by polio, which leaves him permanently paralyzed from the neck down. Now a guy who was previously all about doing exotic traveling and parties is confined to a hospital bed, a situation that has Robin convinced his life is over.

How Can A Man Go On After Seeing The Horrors Of War? Brothers Examines that Very Question To Fantastic Results

MINOR SPOILERS FOR BROTHERS FOLLOW

Those Amazing Spider-Man movies unleashed a number of terrible things upon our world, but one of the worst was this phenomenon I saw where the arrival of a new Spider-Man immediately meant the previous incarnation of the character must be torn down and defiled lest he distract even a tiny bit from Andrew Garfield's Spider-Stalker interpretation of the character (which wasted an absolutely phenomenal actor in regards to Andrew Garfield). I saw too many social media posts declaring Tobey Maguire to be a "weird" actor who was "whiny" and "stupid" and all that jazz and that just struck me as so weird and as shallow criticisms.

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.

Hacksaw Ridge Is An Over-Done But Mostly Emotionally Satisfying War Drama

In an on-air interview with Stephen Colbert this past week, Mel Gibson made explicit mention that he felt that the act of suffering was a critical part of his religion, Catholicism. And that comes through loud and clear in Hacksaw Ridge, a World War II movie that makes sure to find plenty of time to linger on the kind of barbaric violence and grotesque casualties that occur in war. His devotion to his faith also manages to have a heavy presence in the movie by way of the lead characters strict adherence to the ways of Jesus Christ. It must be said, as a Christian myself, it is truly nice to see a movie with my theology at the center of it that's actually well-made and professional looking. This isn't a God's Not Dead type endeavor in terms of production value in other words.

There's Plenty Of Excitement To Be Had In Hell Or High Water

It's always nice to see movies that actually understand Texas and don't treat it like some idyllic postcard that's an ode to "the good o'l days". Instead, Texas as depicted in Hell Or High Water is very much true to life, full of people struggling to make the ways of farming work in the modern day world (one dude who's trying to wrangle his cattle during his thunderstorm jokes about how he wonders why his kids don't wanna do this job), red Coke cups in every diner and those smaller towns that aren't just an anomaly in America but even in Texas itself which is, in 2016, dominated by bustling metroplexes.

99 Homes Review

Michael Shannon is a top-caliber actor that, for my money, does not get enough praise for his acting accomplishments in his career. Here's a dude who has mastered the art of intense acting, but he always manages to bring a new angle to this type of performance. In Revolutionary Road, for instance, he has his intensity stem from indignation from those around him, whilst the David Koepp bicycle action film Premium Rush has him become one helluva hostile individual due to overwhelming desperation.

Editorial: What Do You Do With A Problem Like Spider-Man?

Hey guys, remember that Spider-Man movie that came out a few years back? The one with the corny dialogue, the performance from Jamie Foxx that was god-awful? The one that made me yearn for the days of emo-Peter? Yeah, that thing happened. What year did that come out? 2012, right? Wait....this year??? TWO MONTHS AGO??? Huh. I forgot all about it. And I'm sure many moviegoers have too.