Why so gloomy, Enola? Why so drab? Why so dull? These are questions I asked myself while watching Philip Barantini’s Enola Holmes 3, a sequel that made sense, considering how great Harry Bradbeer’s 2022 second entry to one of Netflix’s most popular films was. Millie Bobby Brown was born to play the titular character at the center of Nancy Springer’s book series of the
Read MoreWatching Thomas Kail’s Moana, I felt a sense of finitude, which is something I don’t really feel while watching movies. But there was something about this dreadful shot-for-shot retread of Ron Clements and John Musker’s 2016 animated masterpiece that felt oddly melancholic. What was it, you ask? I finally realized that the era when Disney lazily releases live-action rehashes of animated
Read MoreIt’s rare to find a remake of an international film that’s better than its original text, but this is what Olivia Wilde does with The Invite. The film adapts Cesc Gay’s The People Upstairs for an American audience, which was also remade in Italy, Switzerland, France, and South Korea. Wilde, along with screenwriters Will McCormack and Rashida Jones, elevates the original film’s
Read MoreI know, another Toy Story sequel? Are they ever going to stop making these? This is a valid question, given how many agree that Toy Story 3 ended the franchise perfectly and offered thoughtful conclusions for the toys many of us grew up repeatedly watching on VHS until the tape wore out. Toy Story 4, while enjoyable, existed only to print money, and many
Read MoreFor some reason, modern audiences are having nostalgia for the Scary Movie franchise. The once-shepherded-by-the-Wayans-Brothers spoof series that parodied contemporary horror cinema had a cult following in the years after its successful release, but none of them were any good. The only ones that were watchable, Scary Movie 3 and Scary Movie 4, had David Zucker’s involvement, one of the masters of
Read MoreThe path from documentarian to fiction filmmaker isn’t as smooth as one thinks (see, as a recent example, Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s Nyad), but Daniel Roher makes it look easy with the incredibly controlled Tuner. From winning an Academy Award in 2023 for his portrait of the late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny to making a documentary that attempts to
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