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REVIEW: Crime Drama <i>Miss Bala</i>

REVIEW: Crime Drama Miss Bala

Jan 31st, 2019 Britt Hayes
A young makeup artist named Gloria travels down to Mexico to help a friend win a local beauty pageant. After witnessing a shooting at a dance club, Gloria’s friend is kidnapped and she finds herself caught in the crossfire between the corrupt Mexican law enforcement and a local cartel. Gloria is...
Sundance Review: <i>Troop Zero</i>

Sundance Review: Troop Zero

Jan 27th, 2019 Eric D. Snider
(Screened at the Sundance Film Festival; Amazon Studios will release it later this year.) In 1977, NASA scientists put out the word that they'd be recording greetings from people from around the world and sending them (the recordings) into space to welcome any potential aliens who happened by....
Sundance Review: <i>Native Son</i>

Sundance Review: Native Son

Jan 25th, 2019 Eric D. Snider
(Screened at the Sundance Film Festival; HBO Films will release it later this year) Little had to be changed about the plot of Richard Wright's 1940 novel Native Son to make it work with an adaptation set in the present, but something must have been lost in translation. As directed by...
REVIEW: Fishing Drama <i>Serenity</i>

REVIEW: Fishing Drama Serenity

Jan 24th, 2019 Britt Hayes
Serenity is: A) an early contender for the worst movie of 2019; B) a bonkers attempt at beachy noir starring Matthew McConaughey as a fisherman named Baker Dill; C) a bizarrely perfect companion piece to The Book of Henry; D) all of the above. The answer is, of course, D – all of the above....
The Dark Side of Oscar: The Academy Awards and Film Noir

The Dark Side of Oscar: The Academy Awards and Film Noir

Jan 22nd, 2019 Craig J. Clark
For the second year, Turner Classic Movies’ weekly trip to Noir Alley – hosted by Eddie Muller, founder and president of the Film Noir Foundation – is taking February off for the channel’s “31 Days of Oscar,” when all it airs are films that won or were nominated for Academy Awards. But...
You Just Don't Understand <i>Parents</i>

You Just Don't Understand Parents

Jan 21st, 2019 Jeremy Herbert
When actor Bob Balaban was gathering a crew for his directorial debut, Parents, a would-be applicant walked in and said, “I don’t really want to do this with you, I just came in to tell you you’re evil.”  That’s great press for any horror movie, but especially for the first feature...
REVIEW: M. Night Shyamalan's <i>Glass</i>

REVIEW: M. Night Shyamalan's Glass

Jan 17th, 2019 Britt Hayes
M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable was arguably years ahead of its time. Released in 2000, five years before Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, Shyamalan’s low-key superhero/supervillain origin story was the sort of grounded comic book film that studios are still trying (and failing) to make....
M. Night Shyamalan's Abandoned Surprise Sequels

M. Night Shyamalan's Abandoned Surprise Sequels

Jan 17th, 2019 Bill Bria
The final scene in 2017’s Split revealed that the movie, thought to be a self-contained M. Night Shyamalan thriller, had been a secret sequel to the writer-director’s own Unbreakable from 17 years earlier. While that twist was a very novel one at the time, it has been recently revealed to me...
Palm Springs Film Fest Report: Risky Business

Palm Springs Film Fest Report: Risky Business

Jan 16th, 2019 Josh Bell
Although it caters to a large community of retirees, the Palm Springs International Film Festival still features its share of daring selections, on a program full of awards favorites (thanks to the festival’s timing, right in the middle of awards season) and official submissions for the Best...
REVIEW: Dumb Sci-Fi <i>Replicas</i>

REVIEW: Dumb Sci-Fi Replicas

Jan 14th, 2019 Eric D. Snider
It's not fair to call Replicas the stupidest movie of 2019. The year is only two weeks old -- and besides, it was supposed to be the stupidest movie of 2017, before it got shelved for reasons that become apparent upon viewing it. An affectless Keanu Reeves whisper-mumbles his way through the...
REVIEW: Faux-Inspiring <i>The Upside</i>

REVIEW: Faux-Inspiring The Upside

Jan 14th, 2019 Eric D. Snider
Everything about The Upside feels contrived and phony, like the movie version of an inspiring-but-fake anecdote your aunt shared on Facebook. Which is impressive, considering it's a true story. Of course, it's more directly a remake of the French film The Intouchables, which itself was inspired...
Rapunzels and Riding Hoods: The Sexually Aggressive Women of John Waters

Rapunzels and Riding Hoods: The Sexually Aggressive Women of John Waters

Jan 14th, 2019 Joe Blevins
For most viewers, cult director John Waters' movies are synonymous with transvestism, “bad taste” humor, and toxic American kitsch. But the Baltimore auteur has explored various political, sociological, and psychological themes in his movies over the course of his half-century career (his first...
REVIEW: Self-Explanatory <i>A Dog's Way Home</i>

REVIEW: Self-Explanatory A Dog's Way Home

Jan 11th, 2019 Eric D. Snider
If you think you would enjoy an uncomplicated, PG-rated movie about a dog traveling 400 miles to be reunited with her humans, there's an excellent chance you will enjoy A Dog's Way Home, which is exactly that and does exactly what you'd expect it to do (albeit with more CGI cats). Based on W....
REVIEW: Neo-Noir <i>Destroyer</i>

REVIEW: Neo-Noir Destroyer

Jan 10th, 2019 Eric D. Snider
Destroyer begins with a bedraggled, hungover L.A. police detective being summoned to a crime scene: a man with a distinctive tattoo on the back of his neck shot dead, surrounded by ink-stained money. The weathered detective, Erin Bell, played by a severely de-beautified Nicole Kidman, tells her...
Overlooked '99: <i>The Woman Chaser</i>

Overlooked '99: The Woman Chaser

Jan 8th, 2019 Zach Vasquez
1999 is considered one of the strongest years of cinema in living memory. There will no doubt be countless articles in 2019 marking the 20th anniversaries of that year's greatest hits and examining their impact and legacy. But this column isn’t about those movies. This column is about the...
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MOVIE B.S. WITH BAYER & SNIDER

A weekly podcast of movie reviews by Jeff Bayer and Crooked Marquee editor Eric D. Snider.

Publication Record
Feb 15th 2:56 PM
Film Fests

Review: Bleak Drama Donnybrook

Feb 14th 9:21 PM
Film Fests

REVIEW: Mega Time Squad Reminds Us New Zealand Seems Fun (Fantasia Festival)

Feb 14th 2:24 PM
Movies

REVIEW: Horror Comedy Happy Death Day 2U

Feb 14th 12:45 PM
Movies

REVIEW: Wrestling Comedy Fighting with My Family

Feb 13th 8:01 PM
Movies

REVIEW: Manga Adaptation Alita: Battle Angel

Feb 12th 3:00 PM
Looking Back

Sins of the Father: The Unfair Orphaning of The Fly II

Feb 12th 5:00 AM
Humor

How Studios Will Repeat Aquaman’s Success

Feb 8th 11:00 AM
Movies

REVIEW: Fantasy Adventure The Kid Who Would Be King

Feb 7th 5:45 PM
Movies

REVIEW: Horror Film The Prodigy

Feb 7th 5:00 AM
Looking Back

The Best of Percy Rodrigues, Voice of a Thousand Trailers

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