XD Now Playing
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Cast: Martin Freeman, Angela Bassett, Lupita Nyong'o
Director: Ryan Coogler
Strange World
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jaboukie Young-White, Gabrielle Union
Director: Don Hall, Qui Nguyen
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The Menu
Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Fiennes, Nicholas Hoult
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Kaitlyn Dever, George Clooney, Julia Roberts
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She Said
Tom Pelphrey, Samantha Morton, Carey Mulligan
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Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg
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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Kate Hudson
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Black Adam
Dwayne Johnson, Sarah Shahi, Viola Davis
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile
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The Chosen: Season 3 Begins in Theaters
Austin Reed Alleman, Yoshi Barrigas, Vanessa Benavente
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Movie Guru's Current Movie Reviews
Since I write many of these briefs the day before the movies are released, what we have here are mostly ruminations on movies I have not yet seen. You will have to decide for yourself if these briefs have any value. I believe the less you know about a movie, the better chance you might enjoy it to the upside. Too many reviewers seem to go out of their ways to ruin for you with way too much information your upcoming movie experience. In fact my D graded Master’s Thesis proposed that reviews should be embargoed until after the opening weekends allowing moviegoers to see the movies fresh and without plot summaries taken right out of the press kits.
- Pandemic Moviegoing
Moviegoing is a social event. Popular movies require large crowds to eek out every last drop of entertainment. Some of us prefer empty theaters, but most expect their movie experience to include fellow customers. We are still not there yet except for the big budget, recognizable, Hollywood products like those from Marvel and DC. Thank goodness for the big screen release of Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick. Finally adult audiences have found a movie they really like and have filled the theaters.
- She Said
Even though this accurate accounting of the Harvey Weinstein story of Executive Power and rape takes place at the New York Times, it very much feels like the decades ago Washington Post’s All the President’s Men takedown of Watergate’s Richard Nixon for his use of Executive Power to cover up Presidential misdeeds.
- Chosen Season 3: Episodes 1&2
Please don’t ask me. I have no idea. This is so weird. If Chosen Season 3 means something to you, then see it in a movie theater. You will be pleasantly surprised and want more of your favorite streaming series to stop in theaters first.
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
I went into the XD theater for the first Thursday preview showing. The theater was packed. I sat in the second row way up front. The first two rows recline all the way back. The previews all knocked me out, especially a new John Wick opening in March. At some point during the previews I fell asleep. I woke up during a ferocious battle scene. I quietly left the theater. I will be back.
- The Banshees of Inisherin
Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, both recognizable to American audiences, are lifelong friends breaking apart in this Irish masterpiece. If you love film and have a chance to see a movie so perfect, you should never pass up such a chance as you have now.
- Tar
Directed by Todd Field. Starring Cate Blanchett. Need I say more. Todd Field’s two previous films, In the Bedroom and Little Children each had female tour de force performances from Sissy Spacek and Kate Winslet respectively. In Tar we have this generation’s Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, in her prime. Blanchett dazzles as a top of the charts Maestro, conducting all over the world. Surprises await The biggest surprise is that Tar has not cornered the audience it deserves.
- Ticket to Paradise
Julia Roberts, the Sandra Bullock of an earlier generation, and George Clooney, the Cary Grant of a later generation, star in this old-fashioned romcom whose previews made me laugh. Fingers crossed.
- Black Adam
The Rock as comic book antihero Black Adam. I watched only the first 35 minutes before I had to leave and didn’t really know what was going on. Afterwards I did learn by looking it up that 2800 BCE means Before Common Era. A very interesting tidbit. The movie seems like a perfectly pleasant kids movie with the types of ultraviolence that put Clockwork Orange to shame, but The Rock is terrific as always.
- Elvis
Auteur director Baz Luhrmann of Romeo and Juliet and the Great Gatsby and Moulin Rouge fame turns his unique talents to the story of Elvis, played by an unknown. The unnecessary hook seems to be the immediately unrecognizable Tom Hanks portraying Elvis discoverer and less than scrupulous manager Colonel Tom Parker as an enlightened human being. Now don’t forget I have only seen the trailers and could be totally wrong. But my own understanding of the Colonel was he cared only for himself and the money. And the money went down the drain at the roulette tables of the once upon a time Las Vegas Hilton.
- Top Gun: Maverick
Archetypal Hollywood film making where the special effects support the story as opposed to overwhelming the story. And the story is communal screen writing at its finest. Lots of writers immersing themselves in the original Top Gun and creating a team of characters, both new faces and old, all working selflessly without egos for the greater good of the film. Hats off to their Captain Tom Cruise. He cares about his audience.