Review – All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)

I’ve seen three or four screen adaptations of Erich Maria Remarque’s famous war-is-hell novel, but this is the first actual German production of the tale I’ve seen. So “war-is-hell” and “German” double down rather than cancelling out in the depression department. Gallows humor and brutally realistic depictions of trench warfare manage to sustain most of the running time. Worth seeing

Review – Morbius

Sony continues to cling to whatever parts of the Spider-Man franchise it still owns. Seeking to cure his life-long blood disorder, Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) instead manages to transform himself into a vampire. Plot’s okay. Effects are okay. A little hard on the animals, though. See if desperate

Review – The Social Dilemma

It still boggles my mind how swiftly social media have gone from virtually nonexistent to society-wrecking menace. This documentary divides its time between interviews with industry experts and a narrative drama about a fictional family struggling with the influence that algorithms have on their lives. I’ve also seen an “education” edit that’s approximately half the running time, sans drama and more or less just as effective. Worth seeing

Review – Minions: The Rise of Gru

Because you’d sell fewer tickets if it was called Gru and Maybe Some Minions? The pre-teen version of the antihero from the Despicable Me series seeks admission to his favorite supervillain team, and he doesn’t take rejection well. Sight gags. Rack music from the 70s. If you like the rest of these, then eh, why not? Mildly amusing

Review – Transylvania 6-5000

Literally everybody in this movie appears to be improving everything they do. And not in a Robert Altman slice-of-life way, either. More in a “let the actors make a giant mess so the movie will fail and turn into a big tax write-off” way. The result is a sloppy, amateurish mess, an assembly of sight gags so stupid that it’s almost literally unwatchable. And yet when I sit through crap like this, I can never quite shake the feeling that this is somebody’s favorite movie. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

This is super depressing, especially for an MCU entry. It both begins and ends with touching tributes to Chadwick Boseman. On the plus side, they’re oddly tasteful for a superhero movie. But they also serve as a potent reminder that the rest of the cast is stuck carrying on without him. Nor is that the only sad moment in the picture, though to avoid spoilers I’ll just leave that there. Letitia Wright and the rest of the cast do a solid job making the story work. And the plot carries on traditions from the first one, including a villain who actually kinda has a point. Mildly amusing

Review – A Chorus Line

I’ve never seen a live performance of the famous broadway production upon which this is based, so I can’t say how much of the awkwardness is inherent and how much can be blamed on director Richard Attenborough. Visually he’s clearly trying to out-Fosse Fosse, and it fails more often than it works. The characters and their stories are reasonably compelling, other than the mawkishly busted romance between the leads. However, it’s very much a creature of its time and place, a 1985 movie version of a 1975 Broadway musical about auditioning for a Broadway musical. Mildly amusing