The “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise is a lot like a fun uncle who seemed kind of hip and cool when you were twelve. Now he’s just a little embarrassing both in present time and in retrospect. It’s not only because he’s still wearing sunglasses indoors, or even that he’s trying to cover that bald […]
Dagger Movie Night: “Alien: Covenant” — In Space, No One Can Hear You Recycle
Ridley Scott’s “Alien: Covenant” opens with a catastrophic incident: a solar something-or-other that awakens a deep space vessel’s crew from cryo-sleep, and results in the death of a key team member. The deceased’s widow, second-in-command Somebody-or-other Daniels (Katherine Waterson), locks herself in her quarters to grieve, and in Hollywood fashion, she has laid out every […]
Dagger Movie Night: “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword” — The Sword in the Groan
There is a very convincing argument that the Hollywood sausage machine lacks distinctive artistic voices; the meat tends to come out rather flavorless and uniform in appearance. Fanboys (and critics) love to ponder parallel universe scenarios: “Imagine _________ directed by _________.” This typically has more to do with what we imagine we’re not getting from […]
Dagger Movie Night: “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” — Hooked On a Feeling, Again
You have to hand it to Marvel Studios. Not only have they successfully mastered the seemingly unrepeatable construction of a cinematic multiverse that grows richer with each new installment; they’ve accomplished this using second and third-tier characters, such as the titular Guardians of the Galaxy, who weren’t already licensed to rival companies like their heavy […]
Dagger Movie Night: “Unforgettable” — An Overly Campy Dramatization of Exes
Attention men! You might want to find something to keep your wife or girlfriend busy this weekend if she’s threatening to see “Unforgettable.” The film plays like a warning shot to every guy who has ever given his Significant Other reason to consider what she might do to you if you left her, particularly for […]
Dagger Movie Night: “Gifted” — Checking the Boxes of Melodrama
Barely five minutes into “Gifted,” the new film from director Marc Webb (best known for inheriting the “Spider-Man” franchise from Sam Raimi and then driving it immediately into a brick wall), it becomes apparent that you’re watching the cinematic equivalent of an adult coloring book, designed and then filled in for you by a computer, […]
Dagger Movie Night: “The Boss Baby” — Throw This Baby Out With the Bathwater
FULL DISCLOSURE (1): I arrived uncharacteristically late to my scheduled press screening of “The Boss Baby.” This had the notable effect of improving the film by virtue of its abbreviated runtime, raising my opinion from “festering, putrid malignancy” to “unbearably bad.” This is an improvement that can only be fully understood by enduring either “The […]
Dagger Movie Night: “Beauty and the Beast” – Stale and Old as Time
Somewhere in a parallel universe, Disney produced a live-action “Beauty and the Beast” directed by Guillermo del Toro. No singing; just dark beauty, true to the source. Somewhere in time and space, that film is unspooling in a theater even as I write this, and a new generation of children – girls and boys alike […]
