Review: Da 5 Bloods

by Lynn Lee

Perfectly timed.  The right voice for this precise moment.  Spike Lee’s never been more necessary than he is now. 

If you’ve read one variation of the “timeliness” reaction to Spike Lee’s latest joint by way of Netflix, Da 5 Bloods, you’ve read them all.  It’s a truth so self-evident it practically amounts to a truism.  Except the fact is that Spike Lee never went anywhere – he’s been here the last 30 plus years, educating us on the ugly persistence of systemic racism in the U.S.  His movies have always been timely; it’s our fault if we’ve failed to heed their underlying admonitions or give them the sustained attention they deserve.  It makes little sense, then, to accord his newest release any extra expectations that it will “speak to the moment.”  Still, given that it's Spike Lee, it does speak to the moment, if less directly – or less crisply – than some of his previous films...

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Review: King of Staten Island

by Tony Ruggio

The King of Staten Island is both typical Judd Apatow and a pretty subtle departure from the world he knows and has often depicted on screen. Make no mistake, it’s an overlong, meandering coming-of-story about a slacker who can’t get his head on straight until he does (very familiar), but it also features a deeper psychological profile than we’re used to seeing in Apatow's films. 

Much like many of Apatow’s big-screen efforts, his latest uses the particular talents of a gifted comedian and crafts around them a semi-autobiographical tale of love and loss. Pete Davidson’s father was a fireman who tragically perished in the ashes of 9/11, and so it goes that Davidson is portraying a wayward 24 year-old named Scott who lives with an exhausted mother (Marisa Tomei) and his college-bound sister (Maude Apatow), and is still dealing with the loss of a fireman dad he knew only as a saint... 

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Review: Shirley

by Chris Feil

Josephine Decker’s Shirley opens with the false optimism of young love with a couple in the mold of American idealism. Over the film’s volleying and spry 107 minutes, Decker curdles it with subversion by focusing on their dismantler: the genius writer Shirley Jackson, played by Elisabeth Moss.

The couple at the center, Rose (Odessa Young) and Fred (Logan Lerman), arrive in a college town already imbalanced, favoring the advancement of his studies over her own. Fred is under the leadership of writer and professor Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg), the husband of Jackson, with Rose and Fred taking up residence in their booze-drenched home. The young couple disrupts their existence with tranquility and squareness, but Rose’s curiosity and oppression halts a patch of writer’s block for Shirley. The film crescendos with the status quo of the campus upper crust, Rose’s intoxication with Shirley, and the wringing of Shirley’s next masterpiece.

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Review: The High Note

by Chris Feil

Are VH1 Movies That Rock still a thing? The kind of movie that the VH1 programming gods connected through the vague thematic tissue of music, casual comfort viewing meant to be consumed on repeated Sunday afternoons, structured flawlessly to pause for snack breaks? It’s as if those gods had carved The High Note from gold for how much the film embodies that vibe.

The film centers around a music icon Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross) and her assistant Maggie (Dakota Johnson). As Grace attempts another relaunch of old music, Maggie’s music producer ambitions clash against Grace’s tried-and-true formula for success - and the star’s wariness that her assistant might be using her coattails. But Maggie begins to grow her producer chops (and a little romance) with a fledging singer songwriter (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), and struggles to balance her goals with her loyalty to her demanding boss within an uncrackable industry...

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Review: The Lovebirds

by Tony Ruggio

Michael Showalter’s follow-up to The Big Sick is both a wonderful showcase for its two stars, the whip-smart Kumail Nanjiani and Issa Rae, and a disappointing mismash of comedy and murder mystery. Though we know it was originally intended for theatrical release, the film continues a strange, disquieting trend of so-called “Netflix originals” which feel incomplete from a narrative standpoint. 

Their four-year relationship on the skids, Jibran (Nanjiani) and Leilani (Rae) are on the verge of a bad break-up when they’re thrust into the middle of a conspiracy involving one dead bicyclist, a secret cult, and a sketchy self-proclaimed cop with a bushy mustache (Paul Sparks). With police on their tail, potentially marking them for vehicular manslaughter, the bickering couple sneak around New Orleans attempting to solve said mystery and dodge wealthy individuals who want them dead...

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