The new Shaft, starring Jessie T. Usher as anxious FBI data analyst John Shaft, is a direct sequel to the 2000 Shaft, which starred Samuel L. Jackson as badass police detective John Shaft, who was the nephew of Richard Roundtree’s original John Shaft from 1971, the one that was a sex machine to all the […]

Jim Jarmusch’s films are frequently populated by richly drawn characters who move through the world at a pace that could generously be described as languid (so languid, in fact, that they often take some time to enter his shots). And until now, that’s never been a problem — in fact, it’s been part of his […]

Taking a cue from Disney — which makes sense, given the Mouse’s involvement here — writer-director Simon Kinberg jarringly opens Dark Phoenix on a full-on Bambi note for 8-year-old Jean Gray, who has unique telekinetic and and telepathic abilities she’s not fully in control of. It’s seemingly impossible to draft up a superhero (or princess) […]

If you live in L.A. and have writer friends connected to the TV world, you’ve likely heard phrases like “diversity hire” bandied about by well-off white-dude acquaintances more times that you can count. If you live anywhere and have zero friends connected to the TV world, you’ve still probably been present for an uncomfortable #MeToo-focused […]

Coming on the heels of its shaky predecessor, The Secret Life of Pets 2 is a mild, playful surprise with the confidence of a long-running franchise. This week’s other new movie, Dark Phoenix, feels like a TV show in a bad way, but TSLOP2 feels like one in a good way, with a sitcom-structured plot […]

Look, we’ve got to get one thing out of the way here. If you go into Ma expecting incisive commentary on American racial relations mixed into your horror (the film is content to only go surface-level in this regard), you’re going to be sorely disappointed. The film was directed by Tate Taylor — he of […]

If there’s one thing Godzilla: King of the Monsters makes abundantly clear, it’s that we’ve collectively warped our definition of the word “sequel” beyond the point of return. Studios have tried to get around the now-old-fashioned expectation that there be some sort of narrative thread connecting each entry in a given series via the notion […]

Having seen your share of formulaic biopics, you brace yourself when the first scene of Rocketman has Elton John (Taron Egerton) in full concert regalia (orange bird-man costume with devil horns) striding down a corridor in slow-motion while the music swells. “He’s on his way to take the stage,” you think with an internal sigh, “only […]