Reviews of the Bosch

It really is about cancel culture, huh? Halloween Ends  wants to sell itself as the finale of the Halloween franchise. This is a difficult task for what’s arguably the fifth movie professing to be the conclusion of the Michael Myers saga, so many times has he been subdued “for good”. It has never been the case and probably never will be as long as the brand stays financially lucrative. Michael Myers and perhaps even Jamie Lee Curtis will be back within the decade on a whole other reboot. However Halloween Ends  at least is a conclusion to the story first helmed at Blumhouse by David Gordon Green and Danny McBride back in 2018, right? Well it would be a stretch to call this series a singular story -a series that started out decently but then went off the rails in both sequels. The nicest thing I can say about Halloween Ends  is that its’ choices are at least not so misguided as its’ predecessor and it does have a notable streak of boldness to it. At the very least it’s not a convention

There was a time when only George A. Romero could make zombie movies. Others might have been trying, and even working within similar budget constraints, but Romero owned that subset of horror like no other.  Night of the Living Dead was a watershed.  It introduced the zombie, even while the name was never used, and virtually all of its’ associated characteristics: the flesh-eating, slow moving yet vicious reanimated corpses stalking people in hordes to feast on or turn into zombies themselves. That film introduced the zombie into the horror fiction canon like no creation since, but it was its’ sequel Dawn of the Dead , that was arguably more influential, in its’ enhanced make-up and gore effects, and in its’ fuller illustration of a zombie apocalypse. In this it draws from the same source that its’ precursor had, Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend , and maybe even its’ first popular adaptation, The Omega Man . But coming in 1978, a full decade after Night , Romero once again chose to inte

Peter Jackson. He is many things to many people: one of the great filmmakers of the modern era, one of the great has-been filmmakers of the modern era, a visionary, a sell-out, a charming hobbit-man. Practically all of it stems though from the movies that made him a household name, and at least for a time, one of the only movie directors who could rival Steven Spielberg for mainstream popularity. Everyone loves the Lord of the Rings  trilogy -many, myself included, would call it the best film trilogy in cinema history. It broke box office records, Academy Awards records, one of those rare instances of the critical and public consensus being on the same page for a major blockbuster. And Jackson has never hit the heights of The Lord of the Rings  since. His King Kong , though I like it, is somewhat polarizing, and his Hobbit  prequel movies even more so (and then there was that weird Lovely Bones  movie that everyone forgot about). Since the last Hobbit  film in 2014, he has stepped thor

Like its’ trailer, Ticket to Paradise wrings as much mileage as it can out of George Clooney and Julia Roberts’ charm and chemistry. It’s a smart move because they’re irresistible -a pair of old school movie stars who’ve worked opposite one another enough times to have an engaging and authentic rapport- reunited here in a context they have not been seen in, but that is quite familiar. Clooney and Roberts are a couple of the most “classic Hollywood” celebrities still out there, and this movie seems aware of that, drawn with something of a sincere evocation to a late Hepburn-Tracy affair, but played to the style of The Philadelphia Story or His Girl Friday . This is all well and good of course, but clouding it is the inescapable cynicism of a movie that might just be giving its’ stars a vacation -a criticism often levied at bad Adam Sandler comedies about a decade ago. Indeed, this movie basks a lot in its’ gorgeous scenery, much of it set in tropical Bali (though actually filmed in Aus

It’s very intimidating to write about “The Power of the Doctor”, perhaps the most consequential episode of Doctor Who  I’ve yet covered, just for the sheer breadth it contains. This is the final bow for the Thirteenth Doctor. It is also the last episode for her companions, one of whom is among the longest-serving in the series’ history and the only companion to have been with her Doctor from beginning to end. It is likely the final episode for another incarnation of the Master as well; and all of this because it is the departure of the current series showrunner, leaving the next one as his predecessor left him, with a blank slate in which to once more reboot the show. Apart from that there are story arcs to conclude, returning characters from this Doctors’ run, and more notably a pair of classic companions making their long-awaited return to Doctor Who . There is so much there to discuss, so much to interrogate -I won’t be surprised if this is my longest review. And yet, “The Power of