Denzel Washington Decides To Fight The Law And Nobody Wins In Roman J. Israel, Esq

The new Dan Gilroy movie, Roman J. Israel, Esq., reminded me explicitly of last year's two Illumination Entertainment movies, The Secret Life of Pets and Sing (boy, I'm sure you're all tired of hearing that oft-repeated comparision, huh?). Like those two 2016 animated features, Roman J. Isreal, Esq. seems to have started out as a basic one-sentence pitch (what if Denzel Washington played a morally virtuous lawyer who becomes corrupt?) that people were understandably enamored with and then nobody bothered to flesh it out beyond that, resulting in a motion picture that tries to be a thoughtful character-drvien drama but it has no meat on its bones, it's skinnier thematically than a praying mantis.

Don't Let Misleading Marketing Turn You Away From The Grim And Transfixing It Comes At Night

It Comes At Night follows in the footsteps of the likes of Drive as a feature film with incredibly misleading marketing that I'm sure is setting up general audiences expectations in a way that they'll be incredibly displeased with what they're actually getting, though the more abstract nature of It Comes At Night was probably not gonna sit well with general audiences anyhow. I saw this movie in a jam-packed auditorium last night and the moment the film ended, the entire theater erupted into indignation at best and outright anger & rage at worst. It was quite a sight, with ceaseless babbling about the low quality of the feature they had just watched filling the hallways as we all left the theater and entered the Texas night.

There's Just Not Enough Brains Or Good Scares In The Underwhelming Alien: Covenant

Ridley Scott is a master of his craft. Like fellow 1970's filmmaker trailblazer Steven Spielberg, it's awesome to see him still out there making large-scale movies and pushing boundaries in the modern age. The guys made his modern-day duds for sure (The Counselor has its notable fanbase for sure but I just couldn't get into and Exodus: Gods And Kings was a total snoozefest) but his most recent film, The Martian, demonstrated why we al fell in love with him in the first place. All of that praise having been said, I won't lie; Alien: Covenant, his newest directorial effort, does make me think it's time for some new creative (acid) blood to get injected into this franchise on some level.

Selma Review

A King Among Men

Discussing the topic of racial inequality in America is pretty much one of the most hazardous things a person can do, right up there with swimming in nuclear waste and drinking paint. Whether the discussion takes place at a coffee shop or on the internet, you'll be lucky if the worst you encounter is someone minimizing brutal violence against African-Ameircans by noting "#alllivesmatter" It's an endlessly frustrating scenario, but it's far, far from the worst thing the tragedy of racial inequality has begat.