Name a movie that you like much more than you should. I could rattle off dozens, and right at the top of that list might be the incredibly flawed yet thoroughly engrossing The Butterfly Effect, the supernatural thriller co-directed by J Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress. This movie gets better with each viewing, but it still gets the job done. I watch it every four or five years. It captivates me each time, though I pick it apart more. It’s not a criticism but rather an observation. This is a movie that I admire. I enjoy its dark themes.
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BlackBerry (2023)
2023 is proving to be the year of the biopic. While each year produces at least a couple of well-produced and well-marketed movies about the dramatization of a particular person’s life (or people), 2023 has more than usual. It is a trend I see continuing into future years. With films about Michael Jordan (Air), George Foreman (Big George Foreman), J. Robert Oppenheimer (Oppenheimer), Emily Brontë (Emily), Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (Chevalier), Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon), Henk Rogers (Tetris), Richard Montañez (Flamin Hot), Leonard Bernstein (Maestro), Ronald Reagan (Reagan), there is no shortage as to what’s on the table for someone in Hollywood to take a stab at. The much-anticipated Tetris felt like it would be the most significant “technology” biopic of the bench. However, I found the film underwhelming and wildly ambitious (the KGB?) for a movie marketed as about a universally cherished video game, but it often felt anything but.
Rush (1991)
I wish Jason Patric (Downloading Nancy, Sleepers) had landed a leading role on a gritty premium cable detective show (think of a darker True Detective that spanned multiple seasons with the same cast). His two best roles are those of an undercover narcotics officer willing to bend the law for the greater good. The first is the underrated Narc, a 2002 film that paired him opposite Ray Liotta. Eleven years earlier, Lili Fini Zanuck’s Rush further defined him as one of the most talented up-and-coming actors, following roles in The Lost Boys, The Beast, and After Dark, My Sweet.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
In a summer movie season that has seen the unlikely pairing of Oppenheimer and Barbie dominate the box office, two surefire franchises have found it a bit more difficult than anticipated to generate sales. While Oppenheimer and Barbie have both fared well with critics and audiences, Christopher McQuarrie’s (The Way of the Gun, Jack Reacher) Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One has scored just as well, but its box office revenue may have been slighted due to the Oppenheimer/Barbie dual release date two weeks later. It may have made the Mission Impossible franchise’s seventh movie out of sight, out of mind, a little too quickly. Dead Reckoning Part One is a film that should be seen in the theater, as many will agree. Saying that it is better than Oppenheimer and Barbie is an unpopular opinion, but one that I believe to be true. The novelty of Oppenheimer and Barbie is undoubtedly an allure over the seventh installment of a franchise, and is something I do understand and appreciate. However, overall, I found Dead Reckoning Part One to be far more entertaining and better executed.
Continue reading Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
Oppenheimer (2023)
Barbieheimer, the crafty, endearing portmanteau of Barbie and Oppenheimer, the two biggest blockbusters of the summer, became mainstream weeks and months before the dual-day release of each movie. Moviegoers flocked to the theaters in greater fashion than even 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick. This ultra-successful, undeniably popular film has become universally accepted as helping bring people back to theaters following the COVID-19 pandemic. Some would say that it saved movie theaters entirely. As someone who sees two, three, or sometimes even more movies in the theater each month, often being one of a small handful of patrons, I am in that camp.