7
CRAZY RICH ASIANS Review
Crazy Rich Asians is a work of pure intent and wide potential, utilizing Hollywood’s most popular, time-tested devices and razzmatazz with a wise and lovely embrace.
Posted by: Ken Bakely 0
7
6.5
TO ALL THE BOYS I’VE LOVED BEFORE Review
As we finally expunge the traumatic memories of The Kissing Booth from our minds, Netflix has delivered To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, a teen comedy just as formulaic, but significantly less appalling.
Posted by: Ken Bakely 0
5.5
THE MEG Review
Neither inventive enough to wow us, nor lovably dumb enough to cheekily win us over, The Meg winds up in a bland middle, at the intersection where the simplicity of giant sharks and the complexity of tentpole-budgeted film financing and risk assessment meet.
Posted by: Ken Bakely 0
10
A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH Criterion Blu-ray Review
A Matter of Life and Death is aesthetically and thematically governed by images of the planets and stars themselves, always greater than individual hangups.
Posted by: Ken Bakely 0
5.5
EUTHANIZER Review
Euthanizer’s ideas about human interactions through karmic desire often run flat, as the film’s stylistic choices betray the capabilities of its lead actor and what the script has guided him up to that point.
Posted by: Ken Bakely 0
6.5
SKYSCRAPER Review
Skyscraper falters when trying to over legitimize its otherwise carefully concocted nonsense.
Posted by: Ken Bakely 0
6
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM Review
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is sufficiently smooth entertainment, yet it winds up as more of a test case for future efforts than anything else.
Posted by: Ken Bakely 0
7.5
BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE Criterion Blu-Ray Review
As the Eric Hynes essay in the Criterion booklet astutely points out, it’s best to consider Moore’s films as a kind of dynamic presentation, mixing traditional storytelling techniques and operatic hellraising with the kind of infuriating horrors that can only come from simply discussing aspects of real life as they stand.
Posted by: Ken Bakely 0
7
ALEX STRANGELOVE Review
Regardless of the notion that its young target audience is more inclined to stream than to head out to a theater, writer/director Craig Johnson is allowed to play more liberally with profanity, engage with his characters’ sex lives more frankly, and create broadly irreverent running jokes that a major studio would cull into a nicer package.
Posted by: Ken Bakely 0
7
HEARTS BEAT LOUD Review
Hearts Beat Loud presents itself as a witty and reassuring tonic.
Posted by: Ken Bakely 0
7.5
ANGELS WEAR WHITE Review
Qu films with a purposefully unsettling calmness, serving as a gateway to the clear and present anger below.
Posted by: Ken Bakely 0
7.5
THE RIDER Review
A budding, contemplative study of humans reconciling nature and determination reconciling fate, Chloé Zhao’s The Rider impresses in its quietest moments.
Posted by: Ken Bakely 0
7.5
LOVE AFTER LOVE Review
Because Love After Love is centered on the constant reversion to its characters’ shortcomings, it forces us to see everything through moments that devolve through inflated egos or simple misunderstandings, charged by personal pain.
Posted by: Ken Bakely 0
5.5
ALLURE Review
It’s hard to discern what Allure wants to say. Once it introduces its idea of abuse as a vicious cycle, it can only re-manifest that notion in different ways because it lacks the conceptual discipline to craft interlocking story arcs.
Posted by: Ken Bakely 0
Ken’s 2018 Oscar Predictions
We’ve arrived at the end of one of the most tumultuous awards seasons in quite some time. While many of the races have been sewn up, some are only deceptively safe, while others – including Best Picture – remain quite visibly
Posted by: Ken Bakely 0
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NOVEMBER Review
Shot in gorgeously high-contrast, black-and-white style, the realms of good and evil are reflected in bright colors that all but blend into snow and ice, with darker tones seeping off the screen into an infinite abyss.
Posted by: Ken Bakely 0
