Review: 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness'

by Nathaniel R

In the recent What If? series on Disney+, which is based on the comic book series of the same name, Marvel's writers could fashion any kind of variation on traditional heroes (and villains) and storylines without any actual consequences for the large familiar canon. Zombie avengers? Sure! Peggy Carter as Captain America? Why not! The What If? series of the 1970s was not quite the beginning of the Multiverse in comics but it was close enough. These thought experiments were always pitched as alternate realities (as opposed to pure fiction) though it took awhile before the effects were felt. The multiverse essentially became a shortcut to any type of retconning any storyteller wanted to do; Contrary to all that dialogue in Loki, Marvel has no "sacred" timeline given all the reversals, resurrections, reboots, and switcheroos. The multiverse virus was even more of an epidemic in DC comics, Marvel's top competitor.

Unfortunately if What If is essentially fan-fiction without the fans, then Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is arguably stingers without a movie. The latest MCU movie is positively awash in cameos and teases for future installments, resulting in a film that feels very much like an incoherent feature-length mid-credits scene... 

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Cláudio's Best Shot Pick: Spider-Man 2 (2004)

The next episode of our series, 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot,' arrives tomorrow. It's focused on Spider-Man 2. Here's Cláudio's entry.

Before the plague times we're living in, it was my annual tradition to celebrate my birthday by going to the movies. Indeed, way back in 2004, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 was the picture that marked the occasion of my 10th birthday. It was love at first sight. While the first Spidey flick was good, this sequel seemed perfect to my young eyes, and, as the years went by, it soon became something of a platonic ideal for what superhero movies should be but seldom were. And yet, despite all this love, I think I started to take the picture for granted.

Revisiting Spider-Man 2 for the first time since my teen years was a revelation. I also had a blast…

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Review: Season 1 of 'Pachinko'

by Lynn Lee

from 'Pachinko's opening credits. © Apple TV+

Can a country truly be your home if it never fully accepts you?  Can a country still be your homeland if you left behind your life there and have never gone back?  

These questions haunt the lush, sweeping AppleTV+ period drama series Pachinko, which recently concluded its first season.  So far, so universal: the yearning for roots, for a sense of belonging, should resonate with anyone who’s ever been displaced or separated from their family or place of origin.  At the same time, the show – based on the best-selling novel by Min Jin Lee – focuses on a very specific chapter of history that isn’t well known outside of Korea and Japan, yet in many ways echoes the frictions, tensions, and injustices underpinning the history of race and immigration in other countries...

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Almost There: Cher in "Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean"

by Cláudio Alves

What are you doing for Mother’s Day? The Criterion Channel marks the occasion with a collection inspired by Michael Koresky's Films of Endearment. In his book, the film critic details how he and his mother revisited the 1980s movies that she introduced to him, igniting a passion for cinema. The resulting selection comprises a varied offering of that decade's prestige cinema starring an array of acclaimed actresses, from Ellen Burstyn to Meryl Streep. One of the collection's most exciting titles is Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, an underrated Robert Altman effort that gave Cher her first serious big-screen role. If not for this flick, her ascendance to movie stardom might have never happened, much less a Best Actress Oscar victory.

As one looks back at the 1982 play adaptation, the beginning of Cher's path towards acting gold is evident. Indeed, she almost got an Academy Award nomination right then and there…

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What did you see over the weekend?

by Nathaniel R

Family movies The Bad Guys and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 continued to do well this past weekend but Liam Neeson's latest revenge thriller (it's called Memory but deja vu would be more accurate since he makes so many of these programmers) struggled to generate any interest. The big box office story (until Doctor Strange next weekend) remains the Daniels hilarious action-comedy-sci-fi-oddity Everything Everywhere All At Once. It was actually up 2% from last weekend; You're not supposed to go up on subsequent weeks, only down! That's the power of true Word of Mouth hits and they're few and far between in the current era since mainstream moviegoing is almost exclusively led by brand awareness rather than a combo of that and word of mouth as in ye olden times of, oh, 10-15 years ago... 

Weekend Box Office April 29th-May 1st 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended links if we've written about it
WIDE (OVER 800 SCREENS)	PLATFORM RELEASES
EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE	HATCHING

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