movie reviews

Chris Knight's avatar

On Independence Day some friends asked if I wanted to join them at the theater to see the new Steven Spielberg movie Disclosure Day.  I went with them and we agreed afterward that it’s a great movie!  Not Spielberg’s best but it’s definitely tapping into “old school Spielberg” that a lot of us remember from our youth, with a dash of the “mature Spielberg” who has been with us since Schindler’s List.

That is how I gauge our greatest living filmmaker.  There is the Steven Spielberg that I met at the Boy Scout Jamboree in 1989: the “big kid” who was as giddy as a schoolboy, dancing around in his Scout uniform.  That’s the man who brought us E.T. and Indiana Jones and Jaws and the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park.  He had a childlike twinkle in his eye and we were fortunate to have him.
Then Spielberg went
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I had never heard of Citizen Vigilante, Uwe Boll’s new film starring Armie Hammer, until a few days ago.  That’s when I read that this movie has been effectively banned in Germany and the United Kingdom.  Something about it encouraging violence against migrants.

But then Elon Musk made Citizen Vigilante available to watch for free on his X (formerly Twitter) platform.  Something that would avoid the censorious thought police and let the people see and decide on their own.  Which only made the German and British governments even more furious.

Rush Limbaugh called it the “Streisand Effect”: trying to keep people from watching a thing, makes people want to watch it even more.  Suddenly I found myself curious enough to check out Citizen Vigilante.  That’s what I spent part of the afternoon yesterday doing.

What did I think?

It’s a far shot from being award-worthy.  There have been ...

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I rarely go to the theater to watch a new movie anymore.  Mark it up to being so busy with trying to be busy (if that makes sense) and also it’s gotten so gosh-darned expensive.  Tickets used to be just a few dollars.  This time I paid more than 14.  I feel sorry for those people with children who might want to see a new animated feature, especially in this economy.

But last night something came out that I have been hoping to see for a very long time. And yeah there is the 1987 film adaptation and it definitely has heart, but in terms of faithfulness to the basic material it lacked a lot.  1987’s Masters of the Universe has been called a very good Jack Kirby-inspired movie though, so it’s got that going for it, and I can agree with that.

So a more accurate (??) adaptation ...

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I’ve been looking forward to Frankenstein, Benicio del Toro’s take of the classic novel, from the moment it was first announced.  For most of my life I’ve been fascinated with the Frankenstein story and I’ve read the book several times.  And del Toro – who wrote the screenplay and directed this movie – is a filmmaker I’ve long enjoyed the work of.  Del Toro’s bringing us a new screen vision of the Mary Shelley novel was just bound to be good.

I was not disappointed.  Although this movie goes into places that I can’t recall any other adaptations delving to.  Most of them, like 1994’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (with Kenneth Branagh) have dealt with Victor’s obsession of bringing about life from death.

This one, featuring Oscar Isaac as Victor, is really more about the relationships between fathers and sons.  It was really quite surprising, and it’s perhaps a dynamic ...

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After my most recent post about Superman a lot of people, especially friends, said that I needed to see the 2025 Superman movie for myself, instead of being so quick to judge by what, well… shall we say more judgmental voices have spoken about it.  It was enough to compel me this evening to use a movie gift card that has been burning up my wallet for awhile now.  So I’ve returned from seeing David Corenswet in his first outing as the Man of Steel.

What did I think about it?
In general, I liked it and I’m probably going to like it even more tomorrow after it’s had some time to percolate in my gray matter.  One thing I will say that came as a bit of a surprise: it is not political at all.  Or at least I never picked up on any agenda infusing the story.  It’s
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My family and I saw A Christmas Story on its opening day in 1983, and I saw it again a few weeks later with my Cub Scout pack.  Every holiday season I wind up watching it at least once or twice.  And I’ll forever treasure the Red Ryder air rifle that Dad gave me for my tenth birthday.  This movie is as near and dear to me as this sort of thing is likely to be.

When it was announced that there was a sequel coming and that most of the original cast was returning, my curiosity was aroused.  What would it be like to see grown-up Ralphie with a family of his own?  I was looking forward to finding out.  A Christmas Story Christmas was released two years ago and for various reasons I haven’t been able to watch it during the holiday season, when it’s meant to ...

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I LOVED IT!!

Okay, it’s the new movie adaptation that came out just before Thanksgiving.  I still haven’t seen the original musical yet but now I want to remedy that.

Today is Christmas Day.  Two of my dearest friends live the next town over and they didn’t want me to spend the holiday alone without us doing something fun together.  They picked me up and after a bit of lunch at Waffle House (maybe the only restaurant open on the holiday) we proceeded on to the theater nearby for the 2:45 show.

I knew nothing about Wicked other than it’s based on The Wizard of Oz and the musical is composed by Stephen Schwartz (who also created my all time favorite musical Children of Eden).  I figured out early on though that it’s about the Wicked Witch of the West, the main antagonist of the books.  But that’s pretty ...

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“HEY!  UNTO YOU A CHILD IS BORN!!!”

I needed to see this movie right now. 

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is a story near and dear to my heart.  I played the head firefighter in two productions of the stage play for Theatre Guild of Rockingham County.  That was years ago and I still  have very fond memories of  those shows.  So I was curious about how this new adaptation, directed by Dallas Jenkins, would be.

This new film (there was a television movie back in the early Eighties, so this is the second time that The Best Christmas Pageant Ever has been formatted for the screen) pretty much follows the plot of the original novel.  The Herdmans, AKA “The worst kids in the history of the world” are the juvenile blight upon the whole town.  But a series of events leads to them not only coming to church one ...

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Many years ago an idea hit for a Godzilla movie.  There are strong doubts that I’ll ever get to make it but the notion still occupies my mind whenever a film about kaiju is released.  My idea for a Godzilla film is to set it in Japan in 1954, the year the original film came out.  To treat Godzilla as a force of nature like an earthquake or tsunami.  Shoot the movie in black and white like Schindler’s List.  And throughout the film it cuts to the modern day (or maybe it’s the Nineties or Aughts) with survivors of the attack sharing their perspectives.  Just like the “witnesses” that were seen throughout Warren Beatty’s Reds.  It would have been as close to a documentary-style film about a Godzilla attack as would be possible.

As I said, I don’t expect that film to be made (or maybe someone at ...

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I think Hillbilly Elegy must have hit Netflix this week.  A friend and I were discussing it just yesterday but I had no idea it was coming out so soon.  I was about to start on The Queen’s Gambit (a series getting lots of high praise from people I trust) but I went with Hillbilly Elegy instead.

Ron Howard’s latest film hit hard.  Parts of it were like a sucker-punch to the gut.  Hillbilly Elegy slapped me hard in the face and didn’t give a damn.  So much of this movie that resonated with me, and not all of it for good reasons.

Let me be succinct about it.  I know people that are like the people in Hillbilly Elegy.  And I could see some of myself in it.  Maybe too much for the circumstances that life has put me in at the moment, but I digress…

Based on ...

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