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

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The Fabelmans (2022)::rating::5

W hen he directed Jaws in 1975, Steven Spielberg was hailed as a wunderkind and an overnight sensation. The truth is that Spielberg had been cranking out movies for most of his young life. As a precocious teenager, his amateur oeuvre was both irresistibly innocent and sweepingly ambitious: A spate of homemade Westerns and WWII battle epics…

ByTodd WoffordDecember 16, 20220Comments

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Ticket to Paradise (2022)::rating::2

I f they handed out a generic award for Best-Looking Movie of 2022, Ticket to Paradise would be on the noms list. As a squabbling, middle-aged couple, George Clooney and Julia Roberts are as photogenic as ever. Their daughter? Beautiful, as you would expect. The locations? You couldn't CGI something prettier. Hell, even the chittering, man-eating dolphins…

ByTodd WoffordDecember 14, 20220Comments

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Tár (2022)::rating::4.5

A s we meet Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett), somewhere in the deep of middle age, she's already a woman with nothing left to prove. When she sits for an interview at The New Yorker Festival (where Adam Gopnik plays himself), Tár's résumé is read aloud, and her accomplishments are stunning. She's an EGOT winner, and…

ByTodd WoffordDecember 9, 20220Comments

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Bad Santa (2003)::rating::3.5

P ut simply, Bad Santa is as crass and cringey as anything Hollywood has ever produced. At its core is Willie (Billy Bob Thornton), a department store Santa who radiates boozy rage like stench from a rotten egg. Even the flies that buzz around his head are probably drunk. It was an enormous gamble for…

ByTodd WoffordDecember 6, 20220Comments

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Black Adam (2022)::rating::2.5

B lack Adam plays like a cinematic paradox. It delivers visual spectacle that's ambitious and expensive, but at the service of lazy, uneven storytelling. As the title character, Dwayne Johnson shows all the charisma and gravitas that made him a durable superstar. At the same time, his acting and wrestling legacies serve as distractions--this never feels…

ByTodd WoffordDecember 2, 20220Comments

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Lethal Weapon (1987)::rating::4.5

L ethal Weapon may not be the source of cop-themed movie tropes, but it certainly elevated a bunch of them into cinematic institutions: Partners on opposite ends of the spectrum, with one guy an amiable family man, the other a slobbering maniac. A police chief who's always fed up with their shenanigans. A stone cold villain…

ByTodd WoffordNovember 29, 20220Comments