‘First Purge’ is the first great purge movie

Posted on July 30, 2018 by reelentropy

This is some of the cheekiest shit I have ever seen. Image courtesy Universal Pictures.

9/10 The Purge movies continue to baffle me with cultural staying power that outsizes their box office numbers. What started as a cut-rate home invasion movie with an elaborate premise has captured the American imagination, fitting like a glove onto economic and racial anxieties that have only grown worse since the series’ debut.

But The First Purge immediately becomes the only entry that I would call “good.” It might even be great.

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‘The Dark Knight’ 10 years later

Posted on July 18, 2018 by reelentropy

Images courtesy Warner Bros.

It’s the Citizen Kane of superhero movies.

That comparison gets thrown around a little more often than it should, but it’s completely appropriate in this case. Citizen Kane in 1941 was really the movie that alerted mass audiences to the fact that movies are, in fact, art, and a host of imitators followed immediately in its wake – there’s more to it than this, but basically every film noir released in the coming decade, and even up to today, owes its existence to Citizen Kane.

The Dark Knight is one of only a handful of films in history that truly had a comparable impact. It brought with it this sudden inescapable realization that comic book movies, these pulpy crowd-pleasing things, could be art. Not just art, they could be the pinnacle of their format.

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‘Superfly’ is sort of fly at times, but mostly forgettable

Posted on July 17, 2018 by reelentropy

As much as I didn’t want to use this image, I think it’s kind of telling that it’s the only presentable one I could find. There’s certainly style present in the shot, but the colors aren’t working together and it just doesn’t pop. Jackson is trying to look pensive and failing while his hair does most of the acting for him. Much like the movie, I really want to like this still because it’s clearly trying, but it’s just no there. Image courtesy Sony Pictures Releasing.

3/10 I was really looking forward to Superfly, and my excitement was vindicated from the first shot to, I don’t know, maybe the end of the second scene. Those two are slathered in style that, for some reason, the rest of the movie almost completely lacks.

Youngblood Priest (Trevor Jackson) is a rising star in the Atlanta underworld, and it’s put a target on his back. When he’s shot at by a rival gang at the film’s outset, he vows to quickly find his way out of the drug trade, a goal he pursues by aggressively seizing control of cocaine traffic in the entire southeastern U.S. Maybe not the most direct path toward your stated goal there.  Priest is beset on all sides by the gang that is still at war with him, the cartel that supplies him and a corrupt, murderous police force.

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‘Fallen Kingdom’ falls hilariously on its face

Posted on July 15, 2018 by reelentropy

For such a terrible film, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom has a lot of really striking imagery. This was the keynote shot of the first trailer. Images courtesy Universal Pictures.

2/10 The unabashed joy of watching Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is like watching a bitter rival trip over his own shoelaces. You’re laughing at the movie, not with it, but you’re laughing hard, and isn’t that the point?

Several years after the disaster that closed Jurassic World, a catastrophic volcanic eruption is imminent on Isla Nublar. Animal rights activists, partially led by former park employees such as Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), urge the government to save at least a few of the dinosaurs that now roam the island freely, to no avail. Their prayers are answered by Sir Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), a billionaire connected to the original park’s founder, who underwrites a rescue operation dependent on the park’s old tracing system, which only Dearing has access to. There’s also another catch – the deal is conditional on bringing in the raptor, Blue, who is too smart to be hunted and can only be brought in by her old handler, Owen Grady (Chris Pratt).

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‘Tag,’ somehow, is a fun and thoughtful movie

Posted on July 15, 2018 by reelentropy

Image courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures.

8/10 Tag is proof that you can make a rich, interesting movie out of just about anything.

Based on the true story of a group of Spokane, Washington friends who had been playing the same game of tag for 23 years, Tag follows a much smaller group of friends in Hoagie Malloy (Ed Helms), Bob Callahan (Jon Hamm), Randy “Chilli” Cilliano (Jake Johnson), Kevin Sable (Hannibal Buress) and Jerry Pierce (Jeremy Renner). The film is framed loosely through the eyes of Wall Street Journal reporter Rebecca Crosby (Annabelle Wallis) who discovers the story while interviewing Callahan, though Malloy is much more the central character. He’s rallying the group to finally catch Pierce, who across the decades the game has run has never been tagged once.

Tag is highly entertaining. It’s got a spectacular cast, and they’re all 100 percent down to clown.

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