Review: "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2"

by Chris Feil

Superhero sequels these days seem burdened to go more bigger than bombastic. If the entire human race isn’t at stake and they aren’t finding new ways to topple more and more skyscrapers, they aren’t following the rules of engagement. So it is with some relief that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 operates very much on the same level and ambitions as its predecessor, its sights on delivering what it did before and just as well. It gets what we loved about it before, and doesn’t mistake it for empty spectacle.

That means more bickering, more quips, and more retro tunes as our space badasses once again defend the galaxy - but also about the same amount of scale in regards to what they are saving us from...

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Tribeca 2017: The Drama Queens of "Blame"

Nathaniel R catching up with Tribeca Film Festival

photo by Jacqueline Harriet for Constellation Magazine

These women pictured above, left to right, are Quinn Shephard and Nadia Alexander. You should probably learn their names. They're the leading ladies of Tribeca hit Blame. Nadia Alexander picked up the festival jury's Best Actress prize. Not that Quinn Shephard is a slouch in that department. Or any department. Get this -- Shephard wrote, directed, produced, stars in, and edited Blame. Whew. More impressively, she did all of those things well! Will the cinema's leading 20something DIYer Xavier Dolan feel threatened or be all 'plz, she didn't have the energy to do the costume design, too? Slacker!'

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Review: "The Circle" with Tom Hanks and Emma Watson

by Eric Blume

Director James Ponsoldt’s film version of the Dave Eggers novel The Circle features big ideas, a pulsating relevance, and ideal casting in its leading actress:  so why doesn’t it work? 

Eggers’ tale of a typical young American girl (Emma Watson) who gets a job at a Google-like tech company called The Circle, and promotes herself into living a life that’s “transparent” on-camera 24/7, has its finger on the pulse of our current concerns on social media, connectivity, and privacy...

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Tribeca 2017: Ashley Bell's one for the ages in Psychopaths

Coming at ya it's Jason Adams reporting from the Tribeca Film Festival again...

Psychopaths is kind of what Natural Born Killers would have looked like directed by David Lynch... or at least that's what Psychopaths wants you to think it is, and it wants you to think that really really hard. It's not quite up to all of that, but then anything that was up to all of that would've blown my brains through the back of the movie theater, so perhaps it's for the best. I like what's left of my brains and I want to keep them inside my head...

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Doc Corner: 'Obit'

By Glenn Dunks

An observation made towards the start of Vanessa Gould’s Obit: despite the reputation as the reporting of death, most obituaries are only 10% about the death of an individual. The other 90% is about life. How a person lived it, what they did, where they went and how they go there.

That's an appropriate anecdote to lead with given how turned off people may be about a film set within the supposedly dreary old world of an obituary department in a physical news outlet like the New York Times.

It’s a nice thought from a film whose prime subjects are not dead and are in fact living...

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