“Are you happy now?” It’s a simple enough question, posed to a young nursing student (played by Kotone Furukawa). She’s left Tokyo for a few days to visit her grandparents in the countryside. They still live in the same house, shuffling around in their autumn years trimming bonsai plants and …
Read More »'Echo Valley' Is the Trashiest A-List Lifetime Movie You've Ever Seen
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A mother loves her daughter. The younger woman has issues, ranging from a bad boyfriend to substance-abuse problems. You’d never think it would happen to your kid — but it could! Still, only a fool would underestimate the strength of a mom’s …
Read More »'Materialists': Dakota Johnson Knows You Deserve the Best Soulmate Money Can Buy
“Dating is a risk,” declares Lucy (Dakota Johnson). Luckily for her clients, she specializes in risk management. For a fee, this modern-day matchmaker will set you up with your ideal soulmate — tall, petite, male, female, fit, very fit, rich, very rich. Her apartment may be modest, her outfits chic …
Read More »'How to Train Your Dragon': Dorks & Dragons, but Make It Real(ish)
What, you thought Disney had a lock on recycling their old animated films as live-action romps, in the name of milking back-catalog properties and nostalgia-driven fandom? The animation division of the former entertainment-bigwig supergroup known as DreamWorks may not have the deep bench that the Mouse House does, but they’re …
Read More »'The Life of Chuck': Never Mind the Apocalypse, Watch Tom Hiddleston Dance!
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and Charles “Chuck” Krantz (Tom Hiddleston) does not feel fine. Outside the room where this 39-year-old accountant lies in bed, there are earthquakes and sinkholes and volcanoes erupting in Germany. California has fallen into the ocean. Suicide rates are through …
Read More »'Phineas and Ferb' Sticks to What Works in a Welcome Return
Most TV revivals are bad. They exist solely for the cynical purpose of exploiting a familiar title, not because there are new stories worth telling in a particular world. Good TV shows are the product of a specific time in the lives of the characters on the show, the people …
Read More »'Ballerina' Is Not the 'John Wick' Spinoff You're Looking For
So many of us stumbled blindly into that first John Wick movie, back in 2014 — how were we ever so young and innocent?! — and settled in for what seemed like a simple B-movie starring one half of the Point Break bromance duo/Bill and Ted team. From the moment …
Read More »'Stick': Apple's Golf Comedy Scores on the Charms of Owen Wilson
The trailer for Apple’s new comedy series Stick isn’t subtle in making its pitch to potential viewers. Mixed in among various glimpses of Owen Wilson playing washed-up former pro golfer Pryce Cahill is a title card that reads, “From the home of Ted Lasso.” No one involved in the making …
Read More »'Mountainhead' Asks: Could Tech Billionaires Stage a Global Coup?
The tech-bro rich, they are not like you and me. They treat the world like it’s their frat house. They view atrocities not as losses of human life but as “atrocitopportunities.” They get high on the fumes of their own disruption. They buy private planes, private security armies, private compounds …
Read More »'Bring Her Back' Proves the 'Talk to Me' Guys Aren't One-Hit Wonders
What happens when you go from being gonzo suburban kids to D.I.Y. YouTube sensations to the duo responsible for a hip film company’s hugest genre hit? Having already made a name for themselves online under the collective handle RackaRacka, the Australian filmmakers/twin brothers Michael and Danny Philippou didn’t exactly come …
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