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The gulf is vast between what the studio wants us to think John Tucker Must Die is and what it really is. The marketers and publicists would have us believe this is a dark, edgy teen comedy about a band of two-timed girls taking revenge on the school...

John Wick is a rousing action thriller of the sort rarely encountered in theaters these days. The once popular genre, which was headlined by the likes of Stallone and Schwarzenegger during its heyday, has been a dying breed during the past two deca...

The John Wick series, now on cruise control for its third installment, has fallen into a trap. The filmmakers have become so intent on delivering “more of the same” that they have lost all sense of proportion. While hyper-violent, quasi-co...

John Wick has lost his mojo. The aspect of this franchise that made it compulsively watchable for the first two installments has degraded during the last two. John Wick has always been a comic book-style property (although Chapter 4 feels more lik...

Much to the delight of those who enjoyed 2014’s John Wick, the second installment of the series (which is intended to be a trilogy, assuming box office performance warrants its continuation) represents a seamless extension of the original film. All...

In the Batman universe, there are two kinds of darkness: the surface-deep emptiness of the Zack Snyder approach and Christopher Nolan’s baked-into-the-DNA aesthetic. For the stand-alone Joker, which is said to be neither prequel nor the star...

If nothing else, the experience of watching Joker: Folie a Deux argues against its very existence. Sitting in movie theater as this motion picture unspools, one can understand any reluctance director/co-writer Todd Phillips may have had developing...

With its skinny running length (80 minutes, including credits), often incoherent narrative, and neutered violence, Jonah Hex shows all the signs of having been re-worked in the editing room. The resultant production, as is often the case in situat...

We all know the phrase "Keeping up with the Joneses," and so does first time writer/director Darrick Borte, who has used that as the basis for his debut, called (appropriately enough) The Joneses. The subject matter is simple enough: Borte has ele...

The Journey of August King is as close to a flawless motion picture as is likely to be produced by the film industry (independent or mainstream). Featuring strong acting, realistic set and costume design, an intelligent script, solid directing, an...