Reviews of the Bosch

Every January like clockwork there always seems to be a new horror flick to kick off the movie year -usually one shuttled there by a studio with seemingly little confidence in it where it can be drowned out by awards contenders seeing wide release and the couple leftover blockbusters that came out around Christmas. For 2023, that distinction belongs to M3GAN , a Blumhouse production and new spin on the “evil doll” trope, which in spite of its’ apparently hackneyed nature has some notable creative bonafides behind it, including producer James Wan and writer Akela Cooper, both hot off of their unexpected 2021 success Malignant . Cooper especially is an asset, as ultimately her script is the vital component that keeps M3GAN  from being your typical trash January horror. In fact on the contrary it proves  to be a solid thriller with a curious foundation of sharp satire more interesting than your average Chucky  or Annabelle movie. Directed by the relatively unknown Gerard Joh...

We’ve discussed #22 to 11 of the Best Movies of 2022. Now onto the Top Ten Movies of Year!   10. Top Gun: Maverick  -written by Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, and Christopher McQuarrie, directed by Joseph Kosinski It’s almost like this year was a referendum on the current state of blockbuster cinema -where conventional superhero movies failed to leave an imprint after their opening weekend, yet the broader, more artistically inventive, or refreshingly earnest hits stuck around week after week with little in diminishing returns. And the first movie that made these waves was Top Gun: Maverick  -perhaps the most surprisingly astounding mainstream hit of the year. Maverick  is a throwback for sure to a very 80s and 90s sensibility of four-quadrant blockbuster -designed more around traditional entertainment values than particularly complex story or character beats -many characters are archetypes, the plot is fairly plain, and it works hard to be politically as ne...

We came back to the movies in 2022! At least that’s what the narrative seems to be. For most of us, 2022 was the year we came back from COVID, readjusted to social situations and gatherings with a particular fervour after two years of restrictions and cautions. And movies were one of the big institutions to welcome us. 2022 was a big year for movies, and not in the way that other recent years have been. In addition to so many good films from humbler regions, there were multiple really noteworthy success stories at the box office -ones that genuinely breathed a sense of optimism back into the film industry. Top Gun: Maverick  was a smash success, beaten at the end-of-year worldwide box office only by Avatar: The Way of Water  -both films that technically belong to franchises but stand alone as independent visions that reject several mores of the current Hollywood mainstream. They are blockbusters of a very refreshing kind that advocate a level of ingenuity and ambition not seen...

The Pale Blue Eye is the second mystery movie to hit Netflix in the last month starring a British actor putting on a heightened southern affect. It is not the better of the two. And yet it’s an intriguing movie anyway, built out of the slightly silly premise of Edgar Allan Poe solving a serial murder case in 1830s downstate New York. It’s not the first instance of such a synopsis -you may remember the 2012 film The Raven  starring John Cusack as the iconic gothic poet. This one though is a little more curious, not based around copycat murders, but rather pulling from a short period in Poe’s biography when he attended the military academy at West Point as a young man. Weaved into a mystery involving dead cadets by novelist Louis Bayard, Scott Cooper has adapted the book as a somewhat prestige period thriller with reliable collaborator Christian Bale as the retired investigator who brings onto the case the bright student Poe played by Harry Melling. Obviously incorporating ...