21 May 2017

Xenomorphin’-Power Dangers: “Alien: Covenant,” “Everything, Everything,” and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul”

By Mike Schulz

It may not be particularly great sci-fi horror, but for the series’ devotees, Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant is certainly a first-rate exercise in nostalgia. Look! There’s the title gradually appearing in vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines! There’s the futuristic “burial at sea” with a mummy-wrapped corpse! There’s the derelict spacecraft! The face-hugger! The drinking-bird tchotchke! The heroine with the Sigourney-in-combat ’do who shouts, “We’ll blow this f----- out into space!”

14 May 2017

Maternal Sunshine of the Spotless Kind: “Snatched” and “T2 Trainspotting”

By Mike Schulz
Director Jonathan Levine’s Snatched, which finds Amy Schumer’s and Goldie Hawn’s daughter-mother duo evading thugs and kidnappers during an Ecuadorian vacation, is one of those one-joke, sentimental slapsticks that you somehow just know isn’t going to be nearly as funny as you want it to be. That’s why it was something of a shock to return to the recorded notes I took during my Friday screening, and to hear all of one critique (“the music is doing way too much”) in the midst of loads of compliments, many of them made while chuckling.
14 May 2017

Ritchie Riches: “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword” and “The Wall”

By Mike Schulz
With its domestic gross of less than $15 million against a reported $175-million budget, Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword tanked at the box office this weekend, an outcome that should surprise exactly no one. Just how many treks to Camelot is one expected to make in a single lifetime?
07 May 2017

A Rogue, a Raccoon, and a Tree Stump Walk into a Sequel ... : "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" and "The Dinner"

By Mike Schulz
After a brief prelude set in 1980 Missouri, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 flash-forwards 34 years, catching up with our motley crew of space travelers not long after we last saw them. This may be the film’s single most-unexpected aspect, because with the action unfurling over the course of only a few days, it’s the first time since 2011’s Captain America: Winter Soldier that a Marvel Studios movie is also a period piece. Granted, three-years-ago may not scream “period.” But in this case, it definitely is, given that writer/director James Gunn’s continuation feels so 2014 that it’s almost as if its audience has been in hyper-sleep for the past 33 months, and is awakening just in time for a new Guardians to start. I really wish I meant that as a compliment.
30 Apr 2017

Gigolo Standards: “How to Be a Latin Lover,” “The Circle,” and “Colossal”

By Mike Schulz
Movies are endlessly surprising. Take How to Be a Latin Lover. In a sane world, I’d follow that with the Catskills-comedian punchline “Please” – although on the day I attended, others were clearly looking forward to it more than I was. The friendly ticket-counter employee told me how much she loved what I thought were pretty noxious previews for the comedy, and directed me to the auditorium with “Try not to laugh too hard!” (“No problem,” I silently replied.) The incessantly chatty patrons sitting behind me expressed excitement about the impending “pool scene,” which, again, looked astoundingly unamusing in the trailers. Then I saw the film. And damn it if this latest vehicle for Mexican comedian Eugenio Derbez wasn’t a sweet, moderately clever outing boasting a peppy spirit, a bunch of inspired performers, and a fistful of truly riotous moments. I swear: Sometimes, this job makes no sense at all.
23 Apr 2017

Welcome to the Jungles: "Born in China," "Gifted," "Unforgettable," and "The Lost City of Z"

By Mike Schulz
Friday, April 21, 10 a.m.-ish: It’s another movie morning with my favorite two-year-old (and her dad), but truth be told she doesn’t seem much into Disneynature’s Born in China. Maybe this is due to the relatively sophisticated dialogue, as our charming narrator John Krasinski employs words such as “interlopers” and says things such as “The duality of opposing figures exists everywhere in nature.” But I prefer to think that my young friend is just mighty sophisticated herself, and realizes that if director Chuan Lu’s edu-doc was going to be this cartoonish, it probably should’ve just been animated from the start.
23 Apr 2017

Armenian Hustle: “The Promise,” “Free Fire,” and “Phoenix Forgotten”

By Mike Schulz
Not to be grossly insensitive, but films such as The Promise – writer/director Terry George’s historical epic set amidst the (still-contested) Armenian genocide of World War I – make me wish there were even more comic-book movies. X-Men: Apocalypse, after all, gave us Oscar Isaac as a world-destroyer, and Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies gave us Christian Bale as the Caped Crusader, and both actors were infinitely more entertaining in those outings than they are in this turgid love-triangle melodrama – a ceaselessly phony piece of “prestige” moviemaking that feels like it’s unsuccessfully aiming for Best Picture of 1985. (The dull movie that did win that prize, Out of Africa, feels like Pulp Fiction in comparison.)
16 Apr 2017

Dom-in’ Nation: “The Fate of the Furious”

By Mike Schulz
The eighth entry in the Fast & the Furious franchise opens with Vin Diesel’s sensitive bruiser Dominic Toretto winning a drag race in Havana by driving a souped-up beater car ... that’s on fire ... moving backwards. The movie climaxes with Dom and his crew evading heat-seeking missiles in Russia while simultaneously outrunning a nuclear submarine that’s barreling through the breached surface of frozen waters. I can only guess that this series’ ninth outing will begin with Dom and a sneering adversary playing chicken atop an airborne Goodyear Blimp with a bomb on its fin, and conclude with our hero plugging a hole in the International Space Station using only his wits and a half-empty Corona.
08 Apr 2017

A Quadruple-Feature That Only Starts Blue: "Smurfs: The Lost Village," "Going in Style," "Your Name," and "The Case for Christ"

By Mike Schulz
Friday, April 7, 10:05 a.m.-ish: To misquote Dickens, 10:05 proves the best of time and the worst of time. The best because I’m currently seated next to my favorite movie-going companion under the age of three. The worst because the movie we’re seeing is the animated Smurfs: The Lost Village, which turns out to be like the live-action Smurfs from 2011 and 2013 if you surgically removed Hank Azaria, Neil Patrick Harris, and Jayma Mays. In other words: awful.
02 Apr 2017

The Bald and the Beautiful: “The Boss Baby,” “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” and “Ghost in the Shell”

By Mike Schulz

Alec Baldwin is currently playing an entitled, petulant, suit-wearing infant – but you’ve seen the SNL sketches, so you knew that already. He’s also playing one in the animated comedy The Boss Baby, and damned if I can determine which of Baldwin’s preening man-children I adore more. Depending on the writing, his satiric pokes at President Trump can land anywhere between one-dimensionally boorish and madly inspired. Baldwin’s titular, Heaven-sent newborn, though, is a consistent vocal riot, even if we’re inevitably deprived of the actor’s physical wit and hysterical deadpan. Director Tom McGrath’s family outing is clever and very funny, but for fellow fans, it’s also a bit like a lost episode of 30 Rock, with Jack Donaghy’s soul magically transferred into the body of his rarely seen child.

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