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 overlooked gems from 1999 — the […]
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No one could ever mistake a Jay Ward cartoon for being serious, not that they pandered to the preschool cheap seats either. Oh yes, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, The Dudley Do-Right Show, and George of the Jungle had animated safes falling on animated heads and enough puns to violate the Geneva Convention, but that […]
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The only time I actually met Albert Finney, I was wearing an enormous cartwheel hat and chalk-white face paint and he was being propositioned by a stripper. Full disclosure, we were on the set of the period film Washington Square (1997); it was my first time working on a movie. I’d bluffed my way into a […]
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Despite its happy, Irish-sounding title, Donnybrook is bleak misery porn about meth and meth-adjacent Midwesterners scrambling to survive and/or kill each other. It’s compelling stuff, written and directed with mean efficiency by Tim Sutton (Dark Night), but I wish the main character were more interesting and that the point were more insightful than “Golly, it sure […]
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(Now in theaters and VOD.) We in the Northern Hemisphere have this image of New Zealand as Australia’s sillier, goofier neighbor. Mega Time Squad does nothing to dispel that impression, being a manic, light-hearted comedy about a nice young criminal who uses time-travel paradoxes to create a gang of himself (himselves?). The setting is the small […]
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Making a horror comedy that successfully riffs on the Groundhog Day formula while simultaneously being thrilling and hilarious is no easy task, and yet director Christopher Landon did just that with 2017’s Happy Death Day. That he could deliver an equally (or near-equally) satisfying follow-up to that pleasant surprise seemed fairly improbable – especially when sequels, […]
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Fighting with My Family would be nothing more than a routine underdog sports story if it hadn’t been written and directed by Stephen Merchant, the gangly Englishman responsible for most of the funny things Ricky Gervais has ever said on TV. In Merchant’s unlikely hands, this fact-based account of a working-class Norwich family obsessed with American […]
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Robert Rodriguez is a filmmaker best known for delivering heightened stories about antiheroes tinged with western flare and an anything-goes attitude, wearing his influences (grindhouse, horror, exploitation) on his sleeve as clearly as longtime friend and fellow filmmaker Quentin Tarantino does. He’s also known for making movies on a shoestring budget (see also: his debut […]
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The premise of Isn’t It Romantic is similar to last year’s I Feel Pretty in that both involve blondes getting bonked on the head and waking up in a fantasy version of Manhattan. In I Feel Pretty, Amy Schumer’s head injury led her to believe she was thin and gorgeous. In Isn’t It Romantic, Rebel […]
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How could anyone even suggest making a sequel to The Fly? David Cronenberg’s 1986 sci-fi/horror remake of the 1958 classic is a stone-cold masterpiece. It’s arguably the greatest horror film of the ‘80s and the director’s personal best cinematic offering. When The Fly II hit theaters on Feb. 10, 1989, it was doomed to disappear […]
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After the now billion-dollar-grossing Aquaman defied critics of good taste everywhere, executives at every major studio are wondering how to reproduce its success. How do I know? Because I’m the clinical psychologist for dozens of them, and I don’t believe in doctor-patient confidentiality. The key, they claim, is water. “WET MOVIES SELL TICKETS!” I heard one […]
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There have been two other Lego movies since The LEGO Movie (a decent LEGO Batman and a headache-y LEGO Ninjago), but The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part is the first direct sequel to the original entry. It feels late, even though it’s only been five years. But while releasing two other franchise entries in between (just eight […]
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