REVIEWSetc.

Office Romance is about, as you may have guessed, an office romance. Jackie Cruz (Jennifer Lopez) is the President and CEO of an airline, dealing with a lawsuit. Daniel Blanchflower (Brett Goldstein) is her new lawyer. Everyone can see where this is going. Jennifer Lopez has such a natural screen presence that I always enjoy regardless of the quality of the movie. Mediocre movies that involve her are still worth watching to some extent. That was no different here as she plays

Nothing makes me feel more pretentious and pseudo-artsy-fartsy than a thought I had earlier today: I have really eclectic taste in movies. Now, do I think most everyone has an eclectic taste in film, whether they realize it to not? Yes, I really do. So I don't think I'm too darned special in this regard. But still... it's good to know that I can get my cinematic jollies from many different kinds of flicks. It's no secret whatsoever that even now, when so many other folks are

Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a down on his luck furniture salesman in the Bay Area. His wife kicked him out and he currently lives inside of the furniture store. After a series of mysterious events, he stumbles upon the titular Backrooms, an unexplainable series of yellow rooms that appear to go on forever. He details this with his therapist, Mary (Renate Reinsve), who meets him with some skepticism, but eventually decides to explore herself. What they find, to quote the film,

Nate Wilcox (Nate Bargatze) is left to take care of his three daughters by himself when his wife Katie (Mandy Moore) has to go out of town for a business related trip. The premise alone is already very been there, done that. The concept that the dad has no idea how to parent because the mom does all the hard work is a stereotype that has been played to death. That wouldn't matter as much if we got one of the best versions of that trope or even a movie that's actually really f

I've written so many times about Shudder. No other streaming service brings me as much joy while, at the same time, also inflicting upon me so much suffering. Shudder Roulette is real; I never have any idea what I am going to get from that service. I was quite pleased earlier this year with Honey Bunch, sure. But it's been rough sledding since then. Just one disappointment after another for me. Nothing else has even hit close to my top ten of the year, even at this point. Hon

No one has ever made a film about weather forecasting before, and somehow, inexplicably, it is one of the most tense things I have watched this year. With Pressure, Anthony Maras has taken a story about a Scottish meteorologist arguing with an American meteorologist over whether it will rain on June 5th, 1944, and turned it into something that had me actually leaning forward in my seat. The fate of the entire Allied invasion of Europe rests on a man reading cloud formations c

Sasha (Eylul Guven, Amy Zimmer) is the child of Hungarian immigrants being raised on Vancouver Island. Blue Heron cuts back and forth between her youth in Canada, and her young adult years. It truly is a personal, restless look at trying to interpret your own childhood. This film very literally tackles the dissonance between your experience growing up, and how you then look back on it as a young adult. Although Sasha is the protagonist, Blue Heron is incredibly centered aroun

Damien Sachs (Sacha Baron Cohen) is an ultra-successful ad executive with the Atlas agency and he has an insatiable thirst for more. More power, more sex, more money, he wants it all. And in doing so, he ticks every wealthy male stereotype box we all love to hate. Adding fuel to this fire is the fact that he's been tapped by current CEO, Fred Powell (Charles Dance), to be his successor. Except there's a catch. In order to save face and show that Atlas is inclusive and diverse

With I Love Boosters, Boots Riley has made another film that feels like it was conceived at 2am by someone who read three books on Marxist theory, watched every heist movie ever made, and then ate something they probably should not have eaten. I mean this as a compliment. Mostly. Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, and Taylour Paige play three working class Bay Area women who steal luxury goods and resell them on the street at prices normal humans can actually afford. They are not crim

Betrayal, espionage, and a whole lot of cigarette smoking, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War picks up where the Prime Series left off. Our titular leading man, Jack Ryan (John Krasinski), is back, but rather than the abrasive CIA agent we know and love him to be, this time he is a civilian. At the end of season 4, Jack had testified before the Senate, exposing high levels of government corruption. Leaving him to be a regular man. That is, until Ghost War ropes Jack back into

There are certain pop rock songs that you pretend you don't know. John Carney has built a career out of making people like you feel okay about liking those songs. He has done just that with Power Ballad, his first feature in almost 20 years. The film caught me by surprise on an otherwise unimportant day. In the film, Paul Rudd plays the titular character who is a wedding singer in Ireland. He had the potential to make it big in the pop music world. He missed the chance, made

There is a moment early in Marty, Life Is Short where Martin Short's alter ego, the oafish celebrity interviewer Jiminy Glick, scoffs at the very idea of a documentary being made about Martin Short. "They're making a documentary on literally everyone," Glick grumbles — and he's not entirely wrong. The celebrity documentary has become its own genre at this point, with Netflix leading the charge on what feels like a new one every few weeks. Short is self-aware enough to lampoon

The world is a judgmental place with judgmental people. Some face the consequences of that judgment more than others, and it doesn't help when something about your appearance makes you physically different. What if you knew the person responsible for the difficulties you've faced in life? Twin sisters Racine (Kara Young) and Anaia (Mallori Johnson) live their lives with burn scars on them. Racine's scars are mostly on her arm, but Anaia's are on her face, causing people to st

It's been a while since Netflix aired their two seasons of The Punisher, and while I don't ever have the most crystal clear memory of shows I have binge watched, I do definitely recollect that I really loved both seasons. Which is more than I can say for their Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, or Iron Fist seasons. Granted, their Daredevil gave us three straight big winners as far as seasons went, but I thought their other character outings were a lot more uneven. Yeah, The Punisher

A guy buys a wish granting toy from a crystal shop because he is too scared to tell his friend he likes her. She starts loving him unconditionally. He thinks this is great. It is not great. This is the premise of one of the most unsettling horror films I have seen in years and I have not stopped thinking about it. Curry Barker is a YouTuber. A prankster. This is his debut feature. I am as surprised as you are. What makes Obsession so genuinely disturbing is not the broken gla

Have you ever wanted to see one of the biggest global pop sensations in concert? Well, at Billie Eilish Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D), you get to experience the artist's entire concert from beginning to end in the comfort of your movie theatre recliner. Teaming up with Academy Award-winning director James Cameron to capture the most immersive movie-going experience for her fans, the concert film is unique in being presented in 3D. Now I do not think I’ve been t

I am going to tell you something and I need you to stay with me. There is a film on Netflix right now in which a CGI octopus named Marcellus narrates the emotional healing journey of a grieving widow and I watched every single minute of it with my whole chest open like an idiot. Alfred Molina voices the octopus. He is wry. He is world weary. He has opinions. I respected him enormously. The crying is entirely Sally Field's fault. She plays Tova, a woman who has lost her husban

Talking sheep investigating the murder of a human character is certainly an interesting concept for a movie. One that many people, including myself, heard the concept of, or even saw the overly cheesy trailer and thought was going to be a downright silly if not flat out bad movie. So when the movie debuted in the 90s on Rotten Tomatoes, intrigue went up, and rightfully so. George Hardy (Hugh Jackman) is a shepherd who reads mystery novels to his sheep every night, not knowing

Niki (Leo Woodall) is a piano tuner with perfect pitch. He works with a good family friend and father figure Harry (Dustin Hoffman), and together they drive around tuning pianos. He suffers from hyperacusis, causing him to have incredible sensitivity to loud noises, keeping him from playing the piano, which he has an incredible gift for. While on the job he meets Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu) and quickly becomes infatuated with her. Along the way, he realizes his hyperacusis give

APEX is a new Netflix original, a cat-and-mouse survival thriller starring Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton. The premise has genuine potential — isolation, survival instinct, a compelling antagonist — and on paper, the cast alone is reason enough to show up. Kormakur has made this kind of high-stakes physical cinema before, so there was no obvious reason to walk in expecting disaster. And yet... GENERAL THOUGHTS APEX is the kind of film that relies almost entirely on its act