‘Dunkirk’ a white-knuckled thriller

Posted on July 21, 2017 by reelentropy

Image courtesy Warner Bros.

9/10 Dunkirk isn’t just a movie, it’s a sensory experience.

The film tells the story of the Miracle of Dunkirk, the 1940 British operation in which 338,226 soldiers who had been pinned down at Dunkirk beach after losing the Battle of France were evacuated. The story is told from three perspectives, all of which take place over different periods of time. On the beach, an army private named Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) spends a week desperately trying to find a way back to England. On the sea, Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance) refuses to give up his yacht and ventures to into war himself as the Navy requisitions civilian boats for the evacuation. He spends a day crossing the English Channel, picking up stranded troops as he goes. In the skies, Royal Air Force pilot Farrier (Tom Hardy) burns through his last hour of fuel furiously protecting the beach from German bombers.

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‘The Big Sick’ is snore-inducing, self-obsessed garbage

Posted on July 19, 2017 by reelentropy

They change Gordon’s name to Gardener for the movie. Again, not a problem, just, why? Images courtesy Amazon Studios.

1/10 The Big Sick sits at 97 percent on Rotten Tomatoes after earning an audience favorite award at March’s South by Southwest and the second-largest studio purchase — $12 million — at January’s Sundance Film Festival.

It is actively, aggressively bad. I could see the argument that the lead creatives made the movie they wanted to make, but with that comes the acknowledgement that the movie they wanted to make is self-absorbed and boring and actively hinders the audience from engaging with it.

The Big Sick is the heavily fictionalized story of writers Kumail Nanjiani (himself), who also stars, and Emily V. Gordon (Zoe Kazan). Nanjiani, a struggling Chicago stand-up comic, and Gordon meet at one of his sets and begin dating. After a big dumb fight that didn’t happen in real life, Gordon develops a mysterious lung infection that calls for a medically induced coma. Nanjiani and her parents, Beth and Terry (Holly Hunter and Ray Romano), wait in the hospital for her to become well again.

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‘Planet of the Apes’ prequel series gets better with age, part three excellent

Posted on July 14, 2017 by reelentropy

As Caesar refuses to forgive the colonel, he leaves the lush green California California forest for a black-and-white tundra, where he spends most of the film. Images courtesy 20th Century Fox.

8/10 It’s slightly different in context, but I’m not sure how smart it is in 2017 to open a movie on a U.S. soldier with “monkey killer” written on the back of his helmet.

War for the Planet of the Apes takes place 15 years after the simian flu outbreak that made apes around the world super intelligent, but wiped out 90 percent of the human population. The apes live alone in the woods with their leader, Caesar (Andy Serkis), but remnants of the human military find their hideaway. The leader, Colonel McCullough (Woody Harrelson), kills Caesar’s wife and first son in the attack. Consumed by grief and needing a diversion to evacuate his people to safety, Caesar tracks the colonel north, where he discovers an atrocity — a concentration camp of apes, organized by his quarry.

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‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ is a blast to watch and a blast to think about

Posted on July 7, 2017 by reelentropy

As many complaints as I have about Spider-Man: Homecoming’s spoiler-filled marketing strategy, this poster superbly establishes the movie’s tone and character arc in a single image. Images courtesy Columbia Pictures.

9/10 Spider-Man: Homecoming is not the best Spider-Man movie, that’s still Spider-Man 2 and it’s always going to be Spider-Man 2. Homecoming may be the new favorite, however.

After a thrilling debut in Captain America: Civil War, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has fallen into a months-long stretch of boredom fighting petty crimes as he waits for another call from Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), who seems to have never taken him seriously. Parker finds his own trouble when he discovers a ring of robbers and gun dealers who work with dangerous technology salvaged from the Chitauri invasion in The Avengers. Among his new foes’ arsenal is a fearsome steampunk flight suit designed for their leader, Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton).

Made under intense pressure on two stuidos, Spider-Man: Homecoming is a flawless diamond of a movie. Its scenes are magnetic and well-planned, all the characters pop despite some of them being heavily re-imagined, and most importantly, all of its emotional ups and downs land. The jokes, mostly at Parker’s expense, hit home, and Toomes is outright scary as a blue collar gang leader. Most of the surface-level stuff in the movie works really well.

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Coppola’s Cannes favorite ‘The Beguiled’ is impeccable

Posted on July 4, 2017 by reelentropy

Image courtesy Focus Features.

8/10 The Beguiled is a sophisticated, confidently made film about sexual power dynamics. It’s one of the best movies in theaters, and just about everyone should take the time to see it.

In Civil War Virginia, Amy (Oona Laurence) stumbles upon James McBurney (Colin Farrell), an Irish mercenary fighting for the Union who has been shot in the leg. Not willing to let him bleed out, Amy takes him back to the girl’s school where she and her classmates hide from the war. Headmistress Martha Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman), teacher Edwina Morrow (Kirsten Dunst) and postpubescent student Alicia (Elle Fanning), none of whom have seen a man in months, immediately take notice, and McBurney notices their noticing. Tension between the ladies’ propriety and lust mounts and boils over.

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