Category Archives: Film Listings/Ratings

It’s movies like this that make the annual Criterion Channel fee so worth it. I am not sure I ever would’ve heard of or seen this one anywhere else and it is a gem of a little film. Sure, it is just two people on a date, their first date, at the woman’s Manhattan apartment.Continue reading “What Happened Was…(Tom Noonan – 1994) A”

Really good first 15-20 minutes, plus the very likable Dave Bautista make this not a total waste and it has some fun moments. Unfortunately, it is overlong, with badly written characters and a total waste of a really cool premise (Las Vegas heist WITH zombies!).

He shows up saying he was a friend of the family’s son, who was killed in Afghanistan. He’s not really lying about that but he he has a bit more baggage than your average soldier. Dan Stevens plays this soldier called David and he does an excellent job as a dry, robotic killing machine. There’sContinue reading “The Guest (Adam Wingard – 2014) B+”

Fantastic slow burn of a space movie. Sure, I wanted to know more about the stowaway and why he ended up there. That plus the ending felt a bit short. However, the rest of this was tense and meticulous. All the actors are great in their roles especially Toni Collette and Anna Kendrick. The tenseContinue reading “Stowaway (Joe Penna – 2021) A-“

I expected much more from Sheridan after Hell or High Water and Wind River. Two excellent movies. Instead we get a muddled, predictable, and shallow action movie. We have seen so many like this cliched premise and many have done it better. Kid in danger, Angelina Jolie is a Montana fire fighter who is dealingContinue reading “Those Who Wish Me Dead (Taylor Sheridan – 2021) D+”

Tough to tell how to judge this one. On the surface it is a documentary about a couple who decide to pursue polyamory as a sort of “letting loose” before they get married. They supposedly setup rules that they proceed to break. It’s a weird and complicated situation and the twist in the last 10Continue reading “There’s no “I” in Threesome (Jan Oliver Lucks – 2021) B+”

Of course I cannot help but compare and contrast this Altman film to Croupier that I posted about recently. I saw both very close after each other on the Criterion Channel and they both revolve around gambling and gamblers. Yet, they cannot be more different. Our two protagonists here are not cool or smooth orContinue reading “California Split (Robert Altman – 1974) A-“

Clive Owen plays Jack Manfred, we don’t know too much about his background but we learn glimpses of it in the course of the film. He must’ve been a gambler at some point although he does not gamble anymore, he sure knows how to deal cards and maybe his relationship with his father is notContinue reading “Croupier (Mike Hodges – 1998) B+”