Reviews of the Bosch

“The story of New Jersey’s next great comic book artist and biggest dick” reads the poster for Funny Pages ; but indeed everyone who appears in this sardonic, uncomfortable comedy is a dick on some level. Everybody finds some way to be mean or inconsiderate to someone else, from an old woman at a pharmacy shouting inane accusations to an otherwise friendly public defender commissioning an offensive caricature of a co-worker. But most of all the artists are dicks. Dicks over their creativity, methods, and egos, but also just through their stubborn aggravations and denial of responsibility. The movie is set up like, and indeed its’ protagonist probably sees it as, the story of a passionate young artist stumbling upon a legacy veteran in whom he finds a mentor. But as a movie openly dealing so much in subversion, it’s no shock this narrative is turned on its’ head. The film is the feature debut of Owen Kline, who years ago was the younger child in Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale .

When I first saw the gif I thought it was Zach Galifianakis. You know the one, where the bearded guy in a fur coat against a winter wilderness nods approvingly at the camera. It’s become an internet culture staple. I was shocked to eventually learn it was in fact Robert Redford beneath that scruff, and a still relatively young Redford at that: thirty-five years old, before The Sting and The Way We Were  and All the President’s Men , in the most important movie of his career -at least for him personally.  Jeremiah Johnson  is the story of a real-life itinerant mountain man in the mid-nineteenth century who was mainly active through the Montana Rockies. The film, directed by Sydney Pollack in just the second of several successful collaborations between him and Redford, was shot almost entirely in Utah, Redford’s beloved adopted home-state, this his first real chance to show it off in a movie. And it’s perhaps for this reason that he has cited it a personal favourite of his career. Certai

Ben Manalowitz is a self-important windbag, not a terribly good writer. And it’s hard to tell exactly how much B.J. Novak is aware of this, starring as the character in a film that is also his feature screenwriting and directing debut. Vengeance  is about said writer, an Ivy League-educated New Yorker  columnist, convinced of his own revelatory insight into the American divide, who then finds himself in west Texas due to the apparent misunderstood relationship status of a young woman whom he had hooked up with a few times and has died suddenly of a drug overdose. He’s there in a capacity he hasn’t earned, fulfilling a role he doesn’t embody, and convinces himself of an unwarranted nobility in how he exploits the situation. It sure seems openly out of touch. But there’s a constant sense of apologia coupled with this character, an earnestness in his desires and drive that’s not so questioned. After all, in some ways he’s not so different from his creator. A few months back, B.J. Novak br

Idris Elba does indeed punch a lion in the face in Beast . That’s why it was made, wasn’t it and that’s why anyone would go to see it? Just for the thrill of pitting the eminently masculine Elba against the king of the jungle. It’s such a wafer-thin premise around this particular set-piece, with pitifully manufactured family drama and vacant gestures towards animal rights, that it’s a wonder the movie wasn’t just allowed to be a ninety-three minute fight. That would have made it a mite more honest, and a lot more entertaining. Instead what Beast  is (a first-draft title if ever there was one), is a passionless, formulaic attempt to be Jaws  for the African wilderness. Elba plays a doctor, Nate Samuels, who takes his two daughters to South Africa, the home of their recently deceased mother. While touring a game reserve with an old family friend they come upon a decimated village and shortly thereafter a violent killer lion who seems to have gone rogue, stalking and mauling humans in ret

There is obviously no shortage of Netflix original movies that I will just skip. I mean Netflix’s algorithm is terrible about promoting them, but they’re also just so rarely worth the time given how little engagement they get, and even less critical appraisal. They are what gives Netflix its’ reputation as a lukewarm content machine. For every Roma ,   Okja , The Other Side of the Wind , Marriage Story , Uncut Gems , The Irishman , Da 5 Bloods  or The Power of the Dog , there are a dozen or so middling projects that do little more than keep the lights on. A lot of these seem to be cheap coming-of-age dramedies, and while there can be a few unexpected gems there like The Half of It or All Together Now , it’s not near enough to garner any sort of confidence (I have not and probably will not see a single Kissing Booth  movie). So why am I reviewing Look Both Ways , a recent Netflix teen movie starring Lili Reinhart that dropped this weekend to a customary lack of buzz? Well, because it ha

Someday the movies are going to understand the youths, but not today it seems. And it is perhaps the fatal flaw of Bodies Bodies Bodies , the English-debut of Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn, that it posits to represent and “get” the personalities of college-age Gen-Zers whilst resorting to simple stereotypes and stock drama for their driving conflicts. The movie is a horror-mystery set against the backdrop of a hurricane, but I found myself constantly distracted from its’ tension by the vain and vapid characters that populate the piece. There’s no shortage of talent there. Amandla Stenberg plays Sophie, who recently started dating a Russian girl Bee ( Borat Subsequent Moviefilm ’s Maria Bakalova). They’re on their way to the mansion of Sophie’s friend David (Pete Davidson) -alongside a gaggle of other similarly wealthy partiers. Rachel Sennott is one of them, Alice, dating creepy older man Greg (Lee Pace); also, David’s girlfriend Emma (Chase Sui Wonders) and Sophie’s ex Jordan (Myha’la

It’s clearer now than ever before that the streaming boom is on the verge of collapse. I suppose it could only ever persist so long before reaching its’ ceiling, but somehow I didn’t expect it would be this quick or calamitous. What’s happening right now is very alarming. Netflix has been desperate for months, making a string of bad decisions in light of an apparently poor financial quarter, smaller streamers are struggling if not shutting down entirely… But none of it compares to the sudden death of HBO Max in the wake of Warner’s assimilation by Discovery, coming with a whole host of other terrifying consequences and impulsive moves by out-of-touch execs that can’t help but look like the canary in the coal mine for the visceral end of the streaming model and with it an unparalleled loss of digital media. If you’re out of the loop, in April of this year, Warner Bros. formally merged with Discovery Inc, the media company best known for the Discovery Channel and other such ostensibly sc

When I reviewed The Predator  a few years ago, I pointed out that this whole franchise got its’ start riding Aliens ’ coattails and hasn’t ever been as interesting or distinct as it purports to be. And perhaps I wasn’t giving it enough credit. That first Predator  is a fascinating exploration of late 80s machismo and is characterized by some pretty sharp action direction from John McTiernan; but nothing that has followed in this franchise of constant crossovers and reboots has ever justified its’ perseverance beyond that initial Schwarzeneggar vehicle …until now. Prey , the fifth instalment of the Predator  solo franchise directed by Dan Trachtenberg, has done the unexpected: its’ given this series a reason to exist. Not just because of its’ own quality, but by what it suggests can be done within the world of this alien trophy hunter stalking people to kill. This film completely upends the context of previous Predator  movies by setting the story in early eighteenth century North Ameri