Desire and fear, baby. Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) are dead. There’s no denying this fact. They sacrificed themselves for the salvation of humanity, traveling to a machine city to explain to the source code that Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) had gone far enough rogue to threaten the viability of the entire experiment and thus both of their species. Trinity passed first (but not before seeing the real sun for the first time in generations). Neo went next, his deal for peace with the machines being contingent on…
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REVIEW: Candyman [2021]
He found me. Despite its earned cult classic status, Bernard Rose‘s Candyman isn’t without fault. His decision to move Clive Barker‘s short story “The Forbidden” from a British neighborhood to Chicago’s Cabrini–Green projects to deal with the racial divide as well as the economical one in the text was as inspired as casting Tony Todd for his titular bee-infested boogeyman running on the fuel of a hive mind’s fear. Yet he still centered it all on a white savior’s shoulders in Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen). Rose flirts with the complexity…
Read MoreREVIEW: The Trial of the Chicago 7 [2020]
You don’t know what to do with the egg now, do you? It’s a project tailor-made for Aaron Sorkin. So much so that I’m surprised The Trial of the Chicago 7 didn’t somehow worm its way into becoming his directorial debut rather than Molly’s Game three years prior. There’s the courtroom drama aspect recalling his play and screenplay for A Few Good Men, the government inner-workings a la his television show “The West Wing”, and the notion of a youth-led counter culture of bickering geniuses similar to the fast-paced insults…
Read MoreREVIEW: Aquaman [2018]
It’s fish-MAN. Arthur Curry’s Aquaman has been known in mainstream pop culture circles as DC’s whipping boy for a long while since it’s easy to mock an orange spandex-wearing dude who talks to fish when measured against his “cooler” Justice League compatriots. “The Big Bang Theory” made jokes at his expense for a few seasons and “Entourage” decided to use the hero’s lackluster reputation as proof Vinny Chase could turn anything to gold (with James Cameron‘s help). So it was a refreshing surprise when Jason Momoa was cast for Curry’s…
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