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: American Sniper — “A Simplified Good vs. Bad War Film That Muddles Moments of Nuance”
When your icon of the enemy is complete you will be able to kill without guilt, slaughter without shame. The thing you destroy will have become merely an enemy of God, an impediment to the sacred dialectic of history. – “How to Create an Enemy” by Sam Keen Collectively, we have been inundated with cultural […]
Dagger Movie Night: “Limitless”
With the first sleeper hit of the first quarter of 2011, Bradley Cooper pulls off a dramatic action role as a man discovering the limits of the capable human intellect, a turn sure to help the actor’s burgeoning career. Originally a vehicle meant for Shia LaBeouf, who had to bow out after his motorcycle crash […]
Weekend Movie Review: ‘The A-Team,’ ‘Mother and Child’
The A-Team (20th Century Fox) (Michael Muller/20th Century Fox) Whipped, nipped, and tucked into submission, The A-Team is an expensive-looking, high-gloss action bonanza, so calculative as to feel mechanical, and so unobtrusive or unchallenging in any way that it’s almost spooky. Four renegade army types team up for militaristic operations under the US Army’s banner […]