Review: John Wick 3: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

By Lynn Lee

“Guns.  Lots of guns.”

That line is only one of several of John Wick 3’s nods to its spiritual predecessor, The Matrix, albeit the most overt one.  With the right audience, it draws appreciative laughs.  It also embodies everything that’s both most effective and most lacking in Keanu Reeves’ latest blockbuster franchise.  The action pyrotechnics are dazzling, the callouts to his last blockbuster franchise amusing, but once the last gun stops firing, there’s nothing left.  Nothing to feel, think about, or care about, even as the story ends on yet another cliffhanger that practically ensures the next installment we all knew was coming and was sealed by the movie’s gargantuan opening box office haul.

It wasn’t always this way.  The first John Wick had a simplicity of premise that made for a sharp and clean, if fundamentally goofy, revenge narrative...

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Last Flag Flying: Sizing Up the Vets

By Spencer Coile 

In recent years, Richard Linklater has perfected the art of meandering. This is not an inherently bad quality to his filmmaking. On the contrary, recent efforts such as Before Midnight and Everybody Wants Some!! work so well because their conversations feel genuine,  real conversations happening to real people. The exchangesfeel improvised, even though they are not. When the dialogue works, Linklater captures all of the nuances of a single conversation: big and small. 

Last Flag Flying, the latest entry into Linklater's filmography, works similarly to many of his past projects. After the death of his son, Larry "Doc" Shepherd (Steve Carell) turns to his Vietnam veteran buddies from years past, Sal Nealon (Bryan Cranston) and Richard Mueller (Laurence Fishburne) to travel with him to bury his son...

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New Linklater Film to Open NYFF

Chris here. You may think it's a little early to start prepping for fall film festival season, but New York Film Festival wants to prove you wrong. The festival just announced its opening film and it's one we've heard surprisingly little about: Richard Linklater's Last Flag Flying.

The film will be a spiritual sequel of sorts to Hal Ashby's The Last Detail, with Bryan Cranston taking over Jack Nicholson's reins. Cranston stars with Laurence Fishburne and Steve Carell, and the men head off on a coastal road trip after Carell's son dies while serving overseas in Iraq. If this sounds on the treacly side, we can count on Linklater to give it some verve. Plus if NYFF has the confidence in the film to announce its major placement several months away, the Texan filmmaker could have something special coming our way.

The film will open in the Thanksgiving corridor on November 17, so distributor Amazon is likely gunning for Oscar consideration. Previous NYFF openers range from last year's nominated 13th to all-around dud The Walk, so we'll be curious to see how the film lands. Could this be Linklater's post-Boyhood return to Oscar graces?

Boyz n the Hood Turns 25

Lynn Lee revisits the John Singleton classic on its 25th anniversary.

Four young boys walk along a railroad track, idly chatting but in search of something specific.  They find what they’re looking for: a dead body.  A group of older boys arrives and harasses them.  The most pugnacious of the younger group fights back in a way that foreshadows his destiny as an adult.

Stand by Me?  No, Boyz n the Hood, which opened in theaters 25 years ago today.  And the parallels are no mere coincidence. Writer and drector John Singleton was intentionally referencing the earlier Rob Reiner film – perhaps as much for the differences as the similarities between the two narratives of boyhood and the cultural spaces they occupy...

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Movie v Its Ensemble

Spoilers Ahead - Many of you have surely taken in the large spectacle clashing of Zack Snyder’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice for either popcorn fun or schadenfreude curiosity after the critical drubbing. Even the film’s fans and apologists have to admit that substantial missteps were made.

One of the most gruesome of the film’s plentiful sins is how it hangs its enviable cast completely out to dry. This is a cast of Oscar winners, legends, and future greats (poor Scoot McNairy!) giving it their all, but still completely out to sea. The luckiest are the ones that are still used too sparingly: Laurence Fishburne and Diane Lane don’t have time to make a mark, despite giving the grim actioner its only laughs.

But the film has a huge actor problem. There are many moments of its cast being underserved, undervalued, or placed into outright embarrassing situations. And there’s one glaring example I just can’t get past...

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