Reviews of the Bosch

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...

And here I thought an episode with this title was going to be a play on the Netflix show Beef . Futurama is back once again and to be honest I would have assumed for the last time. Season eleven was the final season of the renewal that Hulu gave it back in 2023 and there had been no word since then of anything after. But at Comic-Con this year it was revealed that the show will be getting a twelfth season, though suspiciously in the form of three multi-episode length specials, which sounds a little bit like the direct-to-video movies from 2007 to 2009 that ultimately formed the show’s fifth season but at the time functioned in part like a last hurrah. The fact that only one additional season has been greenlit rather than two leads me to believe both Hulu and Futurama see these specials as the end -possibly allowing the show a little more time and grace for its next series finale. Granted, this season’s finale is titled “Final Ending: The Last Conclusion”, so it is a bit rich that the ...

I’m a late millennial, so of course I have a connection to Avatar: The Last Airbender . Though while I was there when the pilot first aired on February 21 st , 2005, I didn’t actually properly give the series a shot until early adulthood, where I was able to appreciate the show on a richer level than if I had encountered it first as a kid. Like everyone though I loved it for its breadth of creativity, distinct and appealing animation, archetypal though strongly defined characters, immense scope, and surprisingly nuanced thematic architecture for a hero’s journey narrative. I also loved its admittedly discombobulated sequel series The Legend of Korra , much more awkward than its predecessor in its weakest moments but more thrilling in its boldest. The resurgence of the Avatar franchise in recent years as a signature artefact of 2000s nostalgia has felt rather shallow and not very interesting -mostly due to the cynical prominence of the live-action Netflix show I have no interest in watc...

It seems like pro-shot films of popular stage musicals are starting to have a comeback with movie audiences. Quite a few people turned out last year when Merrily We Roll Along , the multi Tony-winning 2023 revival of a previously underrated and unsuccessful Stephen Sondheim show came to a theatre nearby. When I attended Hadestown last weekend, it was very nearly a sold-out show, which rarely happens for even the most popular movies. There’s an appetite and I hope it continues to grow. Because it means that those of us not privileged to live in London or New York can catch these extremely popular shows in their full context rather than piecing them together from soundtrack albums, low-quality bootlegs, or often lower-quality amateur performances. Waiting for them to come to you on stage can be impractical or inconceivable -and even then it would likely be a very different experience than the one everyone raves about. Much as musicals are ideally meant to be produced and performed by a...

It’s difficult to say exactly what is going on at any given point in Nicholas Winding Refn’s Her Private Hell except that it is quite intoxicating to look at but also quite slow and obtuse. It is Refn’s first movie in ten years, his last being the equally strange arthouse horror film The Neon Demon , yet this film seems even less attached to narrative, character, or context, motivated almost entirely by mood, vibes, messy themes and messier sexuality. As a result it feels to me like a less coherent, less entertaining Lost Highway -which is not a favourite David Lynch of mine but I do have a respect for its metaphors and how it comes together. Her Private Hell does not really -I wonder how much Refn himself can make of its fragments of unfiltered psychology. But it can be called a unique and fascinating film -the preferable form of disappointing movie, for its conceptions and pretentious eccentricities. The title in any case is quite accurate, as Sophie Thatcher’s Elle seems relative...

Dead Calm is remembered as the movie that really launched the careers of both Nicole Kidman and Billy Zane. Yet my reason for finally watching the film has to do with its third star who, despite the movie’s fairly memorable premise and execution (enough so that it has been parodied a handful of times), is often forgotten was even a part of it. But as in just about every movie he appeared in, Sam Neill is compelling and singular here, and quietly excellent in a role that demands just as much as his younger co-stars if its not as involved or sexually provocative. Neill’s recent unexpected passing is a tough pill to swallow, and I felt a compulsion to engage with some work of this internationally beloved Kiwi who may well have been one of my favourite actors. And Dead Calm , which is a great and popular story, felt like the right piece. Director Philip Noyce and screenwriter Terry Hayes came to the material after an earlier version famously failed to manifest. The book Dead Calm by Ch...