M3GAN (2022)::rating::3.5::rating::3.5::rating::3.5

M 3GAN might not set the world on fire as a horror flick, but it burns bright and kinda brilliant as a whacked-out social satire. Look long enough into its shenanigans and you'll find riffs on the increasing encroachment of artificial intelligence, and how parents use gadgetry to distract unruly children. (Count me guilty of the…

ByTodd WoffordFebruary 8, 20230Comments

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All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)::rating::4.5

A ll Quiet on the Western Front takes place during the final agonal gasps of World War I. As the armistice threatens to answer an ugly war with an ugly peace, young German recruits mass on the shell-pocked moonscape of Northern France. We focus on a small group of schoolboys as they pile into smoldering,…

ByTodd WoffordFebruary 4, 20230Comments

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A View to a Kill (1985)::rating::2

B ond aficionados have long bagged on A View to a Kill as the nadir of the franchise, and their complaints aren’t without merit. The villain is more boring than a sleeve of rice cakes. 007’s main squeeze is supremely annoying. Many of the film’s lame jokes make Hee Haw sound like…

ByTodd WoffordFebruary 1, 20230Comments

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Triangle of Sadness (2022)::rating::3.5

M uch like this year’s The Menu, Triangle of Sadness takes aim at the pinkies-out dilettantes who punish the world with their platinum-coated sense of entitlement. Despite this similarity, the two films are actually defined by their differences: Triangle is broader, bolder, and more sweepingly ambitious than its satirical cousin. That’s not to say it’s the better film.…

ByTodd WoffordJanuary 26, 20230Comments

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To Leslie (2022)::rating::4.5

T o Leslie sent my thoughts back to a similar film, Hillbilly Elegy. In that middling, piddling, manipulative hooey, millionaire actors slap on prosthetics and moth-eaten flannel. For two hours, they bark at each other in flimsy redneck accents in a blatant attempt to chase down Oscars. It was hollow, predictable, poorly-written tripe, a fact made…

ByTodd WoffordJanuary 24, 20230Comments

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The Menu (2022)::rating::3.5

I managed a wine store for almost fifteen years, and I affectionately remember some of the pretentious wine reviews that hung from the shelves. My favorite was attached to a Spanish red, which boasted it had a “firm international structure.” Now, if anybody anywhere knows what in the holy honey-baked hell that means, I…

ByTodd WoffordJanuary 17, 20230Comments

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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)::rating::3.5

E ven amongst the crowded field of obligatory sequels, Glass Onion stands out, like a shimmering, whinnying unicorn. Writer-director Rian Johnson somehow replicates everything that made Knives Out a real hootenanny, while also steering that familiar story deep into left field. Once again, Johnson riffs on Agatha Christie, but he also builds a story that's hilarious,…

ByTodd WoffordJanuary 11, 20230Comments

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The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)::rating::4.5

T he Banshees of Inisherin takes place in 1923, on a little Irish island where life seems to amble along, like a pleasant stroll on a country road. As civil war rages on the mainland, the townsfolk of Inisherin regard the flash and boom of artillery like a distant thunderstorm. Even the local gossip laments…

ByTodd WoffordJanuary 5, 20230Comments

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When Harry Met Sally… (1989)::rating::4

W hen Harry Met Sally... adheres to the classic rom-com spirituality, wherein nothing could ever happen by chance. Indeed, the film intersperses interviews with elderly couples, who gleefully recount the serendipity that kept them apart until they were meant to be together. Ironically, the story is built around two characters who spend most of the…

ByTodd WoffordDecember 27, 20220Comments

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National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)::rating::4.5

T hroughout the Vacation movies, Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) functions as a kind of cheerful, benevolent weapon of mass destruction. His ambition is simple, but noble: To act as catalyst for the greatest vacation, holiday gathering, or whatever ill-fated event the screenwriters have devised for him. His currency as a husband and father is measured solely…

ByTodd WoffordDecember 21, 20220Comments