Two Sides of One Man Struggle to Coexist in Beach Rats

Frankie (Harris Dickinson) has a secret. He spends his night surfing internet chatrooms for gay men looking for hookups. It's all part of Frankie exploring his sexuality. Any person exploring this side of themselves should feel glorious getting to touch upon new parts of themselves. Unfortunately, Frankie is daunted by how his family, and especially his ultra-macho friends would take this news. So he keeps this side of himself buried away. Frankie remains firmly in the closet save for brief indulgences like nighttime sex sessions with men on those internet chatrooms. Frankie hopes to draw a firm line between "the real world" and his suppressed homosexuality. How long can the divide last? What lengths will Frankie go to keep this part of himself a secret?

Step Has Got Impressive Dance Moves And Emotionally Resonant Sequences To Spare

How was Step not a bigger deal in its theatrical release back in August 2017? I know documentaries typically struggle to garner mainstream approval at the domestic box office but the film itself is like the coolest inspirational sports movie premise that actually happened! One gets to witness real people struggle in their pursuit of an education and then find varying individual forms of triumph! It's a fascinating feel-good piece of cinema that totally feels like it could have been a major word-of-mouth phenomenon with the proper marketing. Even if it didn't get the reception it should have received in its theatrical release, I am here to tell you today that Step is indeed an awesome uplifting movie.

Kogonada Makes an Impressive Debut Effort As A Writer/Director With Columbus

You'd be surprised by what topics can help connect people. Sometimes a common interest in the most unusual things can help unite strangers. That's part of the appeal of all those fan conventions centered around niche interests, a way for people to amalgamate around what they love. For the lead characters of Columbus, it's architecture found around Columbus, Indiana that manages to bring these two strangers together during pivotal moments in their lives. Another person may just see assorted buildings in a city in Indiana, but for these two human beings, these buildings offer a chance for some much-needed human connections during tumultuous periods in their lives.

Live In The Chaotic And Gruesome Here And Now With Nocturama

There isn't much in the way of background established for the lead characters of Nocturama in its opening scenes. We just get to follow a handful of college-aged young adults going about assorted pieces of business, with only minimal amounts of accompanying of dialogue, with this array of individuals occasionally bumping into each other amidst their routines before it's revealed that they're all in some kind of close-knit group together. There's a subtly intense vibe created here, an undercurrent of espionage that director Bertrand Bonello is able to sew into the fabric of seemingly mundane sequences.

Wowzers, Good Time Is Excellent And Visually Magnificent Crime Thriller Cinema!

MILD SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING OF GOOD TIME ARE WITHIN! 

Good Time feels so much like a singular movie, like it's the manifestation of a precise one-of-a-kind take on the crime thriller genre. Directed by Ben Safdie and Josh Safdie (the two are commonly referred to as The Safdie Brothers), there's plenty of elements here that are immediately distinctive, most notably the visual aesthetic that leans heavily on a bright neon-infused color scheme that coats every environment the story wanders into which range from a bail bond office to an amusement park. Then there's the score by Oneohtrix Point Never, which pulsates right in your ear with its idiosyncratic sound as well as the camerawork that comes up with truly inventive ways to frame various intensity-driven sequences.

Ingrid Goes West Has Refreshing And Entertaining Things To Say About Technology

We all use social media these days, but if you think you're hooked on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all those sorts of apps, just wait until you meet Ingrid (Aubrey Plaza). This is one person whose fixation on social media goes well into the unhealthy territory and her aggravation over seeing Instagram pictures of her "best friends" wedding that she wasn't invited leads her to attack said "best friend" at that wedding. After that, she's been spending some extended time at a mental institution, hoping to get her life in order...until she finds the next target of her obsession, a Los Angeles social media icon by the name of Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen).

Wind River Is A Snow-Ridden Search For Answers

What is Wind River? Well, it's an Indian Reservation, primarily populated by Native American individuals, that is located in Wyoming. It is here that Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) makes his living as he hunts predators for farmers who are concerned that said predators may be gobbling down their livestock. It's an occupation that makes him a decent chunk of change and allows him to live close to his son with whom he shares custody with his ex-wife. While on patrol for his job one day, Cory comes across the body of a deceased young woman in the snow. An FBI agent, Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen), is called in to help with the investigation into this mysterious death, as suspicions soon arise that this lady could have been murdered.

Hop Aboard The Thrilling And Well-Crafted Tony Scott Feature The Taking Of Pelham 1 2 3

It starts out like any other normal day. The trains are whizzing by, they stop, people get on, other people get off. Walter Garber (Denzel Washington) shows up to his station as a Subway dispatcher as he helps all the various trains in the subway system of New York City run smoothly. Most days, they do just that. But today, something's gone wrong. The train Pelham 1 2 3 has stopped suddenly in the middle of the rails and nobody in charge of Pelham 1 2 3 with Garber over the established communication channels. Confusion ensues until a voice is heard speaking to Garber, with the voice belonging to a man who has taken control of the train with the help of some other gun-toting men.

The First Half Of The First Season Of The Tick Is A Surprisingly Funny And Enjoyable Affair

It isn't just in your local multiplex that superheroes have become a recurring presence, the boob tube is also an entertainment locale where superheroes can be found in heavy doses. Each of the five major networks, save for CBS, have at least one superhero show on their airwaves while all sorts of cable networks have their own superhero TV shows. Some of these programs, in order to fit into the smaller budgeted nature of TV shows, are deconstructions of superheroes focusing on normal people, like NBC's Powerless or the Playstation Network's one stab at original programming Powers. The Tick is kind of sort of being made in that storytelling mold but its savvy knowledge of superhero tropes is used more for good-natured rib poking than outright mockery. Plus, it's refreshingly not at all ashamed of embracing the sillier aspects of superheroes, one of a number of positive elements of this program.

Wolf Warrior II Improves On The Action Of Its Predecessor But Still Remains Too Generic

For my American readers, it's likely you haven't even heard of Wolf Warrior II, but if you're a resident of China, well, the odds are good you're very much acquainted with this motion picture due to the massive box office success it's experienced in China. Breaking box office records left and right in its home country of China, Wolf Warrior II has become the biggest movie of all-time in China and has amassed the second largest box office sum ever accumulated by one movie in one country, only behind the $936 million grossed by Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the U.S. in 2015. Already one of the ten biggest movies of the year at the worldwide box office, Wolf Warriors II is a phenomenon.

The Hollow And Forgettable Death Note Lacks Substance But At Least Willem Dafoe Is Fun In It

Because the majority of the most well-known American comic book characters are owned by two comic book companies (Marvel and DC Comics) that are each already owned by differing corporations, movie studios in recent years have been looking around for other already-established material to work as the basis for franchises that can replicate the success of these comic book based features. We've gotten more high-profile video game movies lately as attempts to make that subgenre the next beloved nerdy pop culture staple alongside comic book movies. Of course, we all know the majority of video game movies haven't gone so well and the same can be said for American movie adaptations of pieces of Anime, a subgenre the new Netflix movie Death Note belongs to.

Douglas Laman Gets A Tune-Up (Entry #6): The Clash by The Clash

DOUGLAS LAMAN GETS A TUNE-UP

ENTRY #6: The Clash by The Clash

Douglas Laman Gets A Tune-Up is a series of essays wherein Douglas Laman listens to an album of music he's never fully listened to before (though he may have heard one or two songs from it) and writes up his brief thoughts on it. 

Rock n' roll has taken on many different forms over the years, with each generation bringing something new to the table in terms of thematic content and instrumental composition that differentiates themselves from the past. But in its many forms, there's always been one common thread linking the various incarnations of rock n' roll; rebellion. From the time rock n' roll as we know it really took off in the mid-20th century, the artform has been always known as something meant to raise a middle finger to authority and provide an outlet for frustration at conventionality, structure and all other things that listeners felt were hindering their full potential.

In Laman's Terms: The Weinstein Co. And Its Twelve-Year-Long Struggle To Build An Animation Empire

In Laman's Terms is a weekly editorial column where Douglas Laman rambles on about certain topics or ideas that have been on his mind lately. Sometimes he's got serious subjects to discuss, other times he's just got some silly stuff to shoot the breeze about. Either way, you know he's gonna talk about something In Laman's Terms!

Last week, The Weinstein Company announced that their newest animated movie Leap! (that's hitting theaters this Friday) would be the start of a new animation division at the studio called Mizchief, so named because that's how the son of Weinstein Company head Harvey Weinstein pronounces mischief. It's the newest chapter in the story of The Weinstein Company's extensive saga of trying to become a formidable force in the world of animated family fare and finding more struggles than success in the process. When did such a quest begin? Well, to answer that question, you have to go all the way back to when The Weinstein Company started.....

Terrence Malick's Days Of Heaven Is A Beautiful Look At Early 20th Romantic Strife, And Yes, Douglas Laman Wrote This Review

Well hello Terrence Malick. It's been awhile. Me and o'l Malick may be two Texas boys but we haven't always seen eye to eye in the past. By that, I mean I haven't enjoyed a lot of what I've seen from this prolific filmmaker, even features of his like Badlands and The Tree Of Life that have scored outstanding acclaim left me more cold than impressed. But I am not one to give up on any artist, especially one that has clearly resonated emotionally on a profound level with so many like Terrence Malick and so I have pressed on in consuming titles from his filmography. It seems I have finally stumbled upon a feature of his that I could enjoy in the form of the 1978 motion picture Days Of Heaven.

"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.

The Glass Castle Is Admirable For Its Thematic Aspirations And Is Less So In Its Execution Of Said Aspirations

At the dawn of this decade, the general populace mostly knew Brie Larson as Envy Adams in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and as a recurring heavy presence on the Showtime drama United States Of Tara. In the years since though, she's starred in a number of acclaimed motion pictures hailing from all sorts of genres, won an Oscar and been cast as a Marvel superhero. Perhaps the movie that really helped her start her ascension to movie star was the 2013 drama Short Term 12, an outstanding feature full of lovable characters and an emphatic spirit that made human beings out of its troubled characters. She reunites with that films director, Destin Daniel Cretton, for the new drama The Glass Castle, which, sadly, is a major step down from the quality of Short Term 12.

The Defenders Is Way More Tedious Than It Should Be. At Least Jessica Jones Is Around.

MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD Y'ALL

And so we come to the culmination of that original pact Marvel Television made with Netflix, the one that stated Marvel's TV arm would provide the streaming service with 13-episode long seasons of four different superhero shows and then all of those individual superheroes would meet up in an 8-episode long miniseries The Defenders (the original plan has now expanded to accommodate additional seasons of each of the shows as well as a Punisher spin-off). That original plan got off to a great start with the first seasons of Daredevil and especially Jessica Jones, but since then the Marvel/Netflix stuff has been heavily flawed in quality (at best) and The Defenders continues the more middle-of-the-road artistic trajectory of the recent fare created by this collaboration.

The Only Living Boy In New York Is So Boring It'll Send Audiences Into A Snooze

Just as Star Wars is still influencing modern day blockbusters in way both big and small, fellow noteworthy 1977 motion picture Annie Hall, and other iconic Woody Allen movies that would follow it like Manhattan, are still having their impact felt on movies made in 2017. So many intimate dialogue and character driven dramas in the modern age still look to the works of Woody Allen as a guiding star of sorts, hoping the same level of critical adulation and high-quality storytelling that marked Allen's best works in the 70's will also befall their creative endeavors. That seems to be the hope of The Only Living Boy In New York, a Marc Webb movie that very much seems like it's a Woody Allen movie wannabe.

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.

"I Shot The Sheriff But I Did Not Shoot The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance"

In his forty years as a notable cinematic leading man, Jimmy Stewart had more variety in terms of the types of characters he played and films he appeared than you might expect given how the default version of the guy is the "Aw, shucks" good o'l boy he played in his earliest works, most notably It's A Wonderful Life. But Stewart also played darker roles in Alfred Hitchcock fare like Vertigo and Rear Window that allowed the guys versatility as an actor to shine. Once the 1960's rolled around, he got to do a couple of collaborations with another iconic Hollywood director, John Ford, with one of their efforts being the 1962 motion picture The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.