Nope (2022)::rating::3.5::rating::3.5::rating::3.5

W ith Nope, writer-director Jordan Peele delivers a bizarre, fascinating hybrid movie: On one hand, this is a burly sci-fi spectacle, with obvious echoes of Close Encounters, War of the Worlds, and Signs. Peele balances this admirable ambition with flourishes of B-movie silliness, dosing his horror film with the infectious humor of Tremors and the macabre whimsy of…

ByTodd WoffordJuly 23, 20220Comments

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Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)::rating::2

B efore I get to pounding this movie into ground chuck, let me be clear: I know anything called Hot Tub Time Machine ain't gonna be a Eugene O'Neill play. This movie is supposed to be an exercise in magnificent stupidity--blinding, blathering, and cut for optimal idiotic purity. And plenty of flicks have dwelled in this…

ByTodd WoffordJuly 20, 20220Comments

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Jurassic World Dominion (2022)::rating::2

J urassic World Dominion takes hundreds of millions of dollars, Oscar-level talent, and two-plus hours of the audience's valuable time, and shovels them all into a blazing furnace. The result is a hellish inferno that threatens to engulf any good vibes this franchise has left. Somehow, the filmmakers manage to make ravenous dinosaurs seem boring, while also…

ByTodd WoffordJuly 19, 20220Comments

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Ambulance (2022)::rating::2.5

A good movie flickers throughout Ambulance, like a light bulb in a haunted mansion. The only problem is, as always, director Michael Bay can't step back and let the story tell itself. Noooooo. He has to shoot every scene like he's directing a Super Bowl commercial with a gun to his head. That means every…

ByTodd WoffordJuly 14, 20220Comments

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The Terminator (1984)::rating::4

T he Terminator is a massive, ambitious blockbuster, stuck in the body of a low-budget B movie. With his first major film, James Cameron (who co-writes with future wife Gale Ann Hurd) delivers the first modern action spectacle: For all of its 107 minutes, The Terminator is propulsive, visceral, and daring. A thousand movies would try to…

ByTodd WoffordJuly 11, 20220Comments

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Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)::rating::3

I f Thor: Ragnarok was a welcome attempt to infuse the God of Thunder with a disarming sense of goofiness, then Love and Thunder is an all-out surrender to it. The Shakespearean heft of Thor and The Dark World feels light years away, and in its place we get squalling goats, a chatterbox rock monster, and Axel Rose all over the…

ByTodd WoffordJuly 8, 20220Comments

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Father of the Bride (2022)::rating::2.5

T his Father of the Bride suffers from the same disease that afflicted the previous two versions: We'll call it the First World Grumpies. That means we spend most of this movie watching a mopey millionaire bellyache about writing checks. Andy Garcia's titular father pouts and throws toddler-sized tantrums, replete with saliva-soaked volleys of angry Spanish. Clearly,…

ByTodd WoffordJuly 7, 20220Comments

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Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)::rating::3

N ever before has a more lunkheaded movie been made about the pursuit of knowledge. Here's the strange thing: Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure wears its stupidity with pride, like one of those trucker hats with built-in beer bongs. That means a person in my position can either spend 1000 words picking nits about two airheads…

ByTodd WoffordJuly 6, 20220Comments

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Watcher (2022)::rating::3

W atcher wasn't constructed with COVID in mind, but it might as well have been. On one level, this is an atmospheric little thriller that lights a fuse and lets it sizzle for most of the movie. Take a look below that, and you'll find a meditation on loneliness and spiritual frustration--the very demons that descend…

ByTodd WoffordJuly 2, 20220Comments

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Network (1976)::rating::5

B y 1976, television had already gained momentum as a cultural hurricane, churning and demolishing everything in its path. No film predicted the tack that storm would take better than Network. Audiences who once laughed with nervous energy at the lunacy of blood-soaked infotainment now cringe that its satirical apocalypse has been fully realized. Frothing pundits…

ByTodd WoffordJune 28, 20220Comments