Reviews of the Bosch

It is astonishing to me that Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie has taken off so much as a near-instant cult movie hit. Not because it is a scrappy independent film with no notable stars. Not because it is produced with a seemingly DIY crudeness. Not even because it plays with time travel as a concept and is ensconced in 80s movie throwbacks -particularly Back to the Future . But because of an aspect to the movie that is best crystallized in a moment where Matt (Matt Johnson) confirms he is in the year 2008 by a series of references that culminates in him seeing a billboard advertising Q with Jian Ghomeshi. I’m astonished that Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie has taken off so much because it is so extremely Canadian. The Ghomeshi joke is one of at least a handful in this film that I have to believe goes over every American’s head. Hell, there are even a couple jokes specific to Toronto in the film that I didn’t catch. But I can definitely comprehend the other ways this very stra...

Somehow, I didn’t expect the movie about a dystopia where casual sex is illegal to be particularly anti-casual sex itself. The characters bemoan the status quo of their world every so often and there are anti-mandate proclamations all around, but most people seem to shrug it off as an annoyance  more than a genuine infringement on civil liberties. There is a disillusioned apathy with the government suppression (someone comments “this is what you get when you’re a one-issue voter”), musings about getting around it or bringing it down are not taken seriously, and it is even bestowed a kind of legitimacy by the end. Of course, One Night Only is not a movie very interested in the implications of its premise. Rather the premise is just an excuse for a series of scenarios befitting a generic enemies-to-lovers rom-com. Director Will Gluck and writer Travis Braun perhaps did not think through what they were actually saying by attaching this novel kind of synopsis to a more conventional for...

Celebrated American author Flannery O’Connor published two novels and dozens of short stories and novellas in her lifetime. Yet for whatever reason, John Huston’s Wise Blood from 1979 is the only movie adaptation of her work, namely her first novel. A couple years ago, Ethan Hawke semi-adapted some of her stories into the fabric of his biopic Wildcat , but there they are presented in a context apart from themselves. Wise Blood is the only case yet of her story unfiltered -written and produced by Benedict and Michael Fitzgerald, who knew O’Connor personally, as an apparently very faithful translation of her narrative style and voice. It is an intriguing movie -a good one- though I understand at its conclusion why there have not been others. Wise Blood is a dim satire on both religiosity and atheism. It is about a young man called Hazel Motes, played by a still very baby-faced Brad Dourif, who has returned from war disillusioned by faith and inspired to channel that through his own f...

Now here is an episode that really doesn’t waste a moment. I really like when Futurama decides to explore a corner of its universe that is relatively untapped. Space pirates are an established element, even if just on a couple occasions ( “Godfellas” most notably), but “Our Flag Means Medical Coverage” now gives them greater attention and a funny and interesting context. Of course it is also an episode about one of the regular structures of the series, D.O.O.P, and some interrogation of its own practices and leadership in a curious if thinly explored political conflict. A nice dichotomy to present alongside some enjoyable new worldbuilding. It begins with D.O.O.P President Glab marking a controversial new allegiance with the dictatorial Vampire Empire by delivering to them a grand gemguliam crystal piano. Zapp Brannigan and Kif are of course assigned with its transport while Fry and Bender have been hired to make the actual delivery. But D.O.O.P’s Admirella is suspicious of the whole...

The persistent motif across the MCU’s Spider-Man movies has been growing up. It began by following the titular hero through his latter years of high school , and reached its peak in Spider-Man: No Way Home , in which by the end Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is thrust into adulthood rather dramatically by the death of his aunt and the choice to have everybody forget he exists -including his beloved MJ (Zendaya). That film concluded with a very humbled Peter deprived of most of his connections and resources, living a solitary existence in a squalid apartment while fighting crime as his alter ego, revealing his true identity to absolutely nobody. An unusually bold choice for a franchise that likes to position its heroes as privileged celebrities. The harsh realities of maturity were on his doorstep, and it promised tremendous development for the series’ future. That promise is delivered on in Spider-Man: Brand New Day , for the most part. While some of the usual Marvel traits in script, ...

Being gay in heavily religious and conservative environments is a difficult experience, doubly so if you are a child. I personally know several people in the LGBTQ community who came from small towns entrenched in those kind of values and have a lot of pain I can’t conceptualize related to that. But I can understand how both a young person’s feelings about their own identity and who they are attracted to can feel like a trap -something that can hurt them, something they have to run from, and something nobody else will understand. This amorphous idea is given material form in Adrian Chiarella’s Leviticus , one of the most honest supernatural horror movies of the last few years. It comes from Australia, which is starting to reveal itself as a fascinating hot-spot for great modern horror (and indeed that heavily metaphorical nature of its monster is reminiscent of the now classic Aussie horror film The Babadook ). But then, Leviticus is just as much a coming-of-age romance -a type of film...