Search for 4

Perhaps the first thing to note about the third Deadpool movie, appropriately titled Deadpool & Wolverine, is that it’s not so much a film as it is a 2-hour sketch comedy, an overlong parody that uses the MCU as a playground in which Ryan Re...

Dear Frankie, the feature debut of director Shona Auerbach, is a cinematic definition of mediocrity. Neither awful nor impressive, it features moments of genuine power and instances when it is cloying. The end result is an unremarkable, unmemorab...

With a title like Death of a Unicorn, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Alex Scharfman’s film has a distinct Yorgos Lanthimos vibe (keeping in mind that Lanthimos made something called The Killing of a Sacred Deer). Although Scharfman doesn’t em...

It’s fair to ask what new things Eli Roth and Bruce Willis bring to Death Wish that the original, made in 1974 with Charles Bronson, didn’t have. The answer is: not many. Rather than using this as an opportunity to provide a deeper dive in...

For a movie that was posited as one of 2024’s heavy hitters, Despicable Me 4 is strangely inconsequential, especially coming in the wake of the more substantive Inside Out 2. More of a “big screen cartoon” than a legitimate “animated featu...

The historical events referenced in Volker Schlondorff's 2014 film Diplomacy (based on the stage play by Cyril Gely) are real but the details have largely been fudged, imagined, or fictionalized. To quote Mark Twain, "Never let the truth get in the...

It can be convincingly argued that John Waters' oeuvre is an acquired taste. If that's the case, I haven't yet acquired it. I view Waters as a pre-adolescent male in a state of arrested development. He is obsessed with what kids snickeringly ref...

For the most part, movies are obsessed with the notion that romantic love lasts forever. That explains the popularity of romantic comedies, most of which conclude with a declaration of undying affection, sealed with a kiss. Only a few brave direct...

When it comes to the pantheon of the Worst Movies Ever Made, there are only a few challengers to the title claimed by Plan Nine from Outer Space. One of those is Tommy Wiseau’s universally derided 2003 debut feature, The Room. Instead of fad...

Recently, Barry Levinson's career has been on the skids. After two critical and popular disasters (the overblown, overbudgeted Toys and the lackluster Jimmy Hollywood), the director is in need of a success. With this adaptation of Michael Crichton...