Movie Reviews and Other Writings

"You see it though, right? You see how making Dr Pepper a girl, you've ruined the essence of the character by taking away the thing..."

Film can inspire great empathy. It gives the watcher a point of view and a way to look at the world that might not be their own. You just have to let it do the work. You have to be open to those new ways of thinking You have to be receptive that this experience is based in reality even if it's not the reality present in your own life. I used to be unreceptive to anything that wasn't a part of the canon. I revered this fabled and vaulted list, this list of white, straight, cis

The Vast of Night takes place in the late 1950s in Cayuga, New Mexico, a small town near the Mexican border. A sound comes across the airwaves and Fay, the switchboard operator, and Everett, the night time DJ, team up to investigate while nearly everyone else in town is off enjoying the high school basketball game. Soon, come the reports of strange things in the sky and other weird happenings. Is it the Soviet invasion or is it an invasion of a different kind? The film stars

My Year with Adam is a series of essays that I will post throughout this year. The essays will be deep dives into a film starring Adam Sandler. They will not be traditional reviews, but an exploration of theme and what is conveyed by the central message of the film. Or, really, whatever about the film strikes me the most while watching it. As these are deep dives, no aspect, plot point or quote from the film is off limits, so if you haven't seen the film before and are sensit

The Trip to Greece is the fourth such outing by comedian/actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. Just as in the first three editions, Coogan and Brydon are playing fictionalized versions of themselves on a cross country tour of hotels and restaurants for The Observer, a paper in London. In this trip to Greece, they actually start in Turkey in order to take the route Odysseus makes in the Odyssey from Troy to Ithaca. There's a lot of food, a lot of laughs and a bit of drama along

The Lovebirds is about a couple who are at a turning point in their relationship where they have to decide to break up or stay together. Fate intervenes and they are thrown into a situation where they could be suspects in a murder investigation and have to put together the clues to clear their names and decide the ultimate fate of their relationship. It stars Issa Rae, Kumail Nanjiani, Paul Sparks, Anna Camp, Kyle Bornheimer, Jaren Mitchell, Betsy Borrego, Mahdi Cocci, Adrene

To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You (What a ridiculously unwieldy title that is!) is a sequel to the YA novel adaptation, To All the Boys I've Loved Before. This one begins with Lara Jean and Peter safely and securely infatuated with each other. That is until Lara Jean gets a response to the one letter her sister sent that hasn't had a reply. Enter the dreamy and sensitive, John Ambrose. It wouldn't have been as big of a deal if the man himself hadn't come back into Lara J

Dangerous Lies is about young couple, Katie and Adam, who have fallen on hard financial times. Katie is a caregiver for an elderly man, Leonard, who dies suddenly and a will appears, naming Katie sole heir of all of Leonard's assets. Of course, this windfall comes with some big baggage as Katie and Adam's lives unfurl around them. It stars Camila Mendes, Jessie T. Usher, Cam Gigandet, Michael P. Northey, Sasha Alexander, Jamie Chung, and Elliott Gould. It is directed by Micha

Spaceship Earth is a documentary about the controversial experiment to build a biosphere and have eight humans try to exist on only what is inside in order to see if it is a viable option for space colonization. It is directed by Matt Wolf. The film is streaming exclusively on Hulu. I love a story of people getting together and getting things done. I especially love stories about idealists. Spaceship Earth is more than a story about a two-year experiment, it's about the peopl

How to Build a Girl is based on the novel of the same name. It's about Johanna Morrigan who wants so desperately to get out of her current status in life. She's a very good writer and decides to enter a magazine submission contest. Despite her submission not being about a rock group her tenacity and talent get her in. Johanna enters the world of rock 'n roll at full tilt and lets the fame go to her head so much she has to look at who she's become and decide if that's who she