Lights, Camera, Action

  PART II (90-81) 90) Dual Director: Riley Stearns ( The Art of Self-Defense )  Cast: Karen Gillan, Aaron Paul, Beulah Koale, Jesse Eisenberg, Martha Kelly, Sanna-June Hyde, Andrei Alén, Maija Paunio, and Kris Gummerus.  Rare is the satire with pitch-black blood in its veins, yet has enough humanity for its protagonists to not sell their ultimate fate out completely to cynicism.  However, that is exactly what Riley Stearns managed to achieve with The Art of Self-Defense , his 2019 dark comedy that took sharp stabs at today's toxic masculinity culture.  With his upcoming film Dual , the director once again finds himself working within the realm of satire, this time blending the genre with sci-fi/action elements and an ambitious concept that's vaguely reminiscent of movies such as  The Island and Gemini Man .  Karen Gillan stars as a woman who commissions a clone of herself after she becomes diagnosed with a terminal illness, in hopes it may ease he...

Living through a deadly pandemic and economic crisis, all during the throes of late-stage capitalism that has seen some of the most obscene wealth inequality in American history, has been an absolute horror show to say the least. So a movie like Locked Down - a romantic-comedy about a couple ripping off a “really bad” billionaire during a COVID-induced lockdown- is exactly the kind of concept that could either be the balm of healing and glimmer of hope we all need, or the astringent salt in an already festering wound. Sadly, it is the latter. Indeed, the Doug Liman-directed film from a script by Steven Knight is exactly the kind of embarrassing example that people could point to if they wanted to cite the ways in which the “Hollywood elite” are so obtuse to proletariat struggles. They don’t always get it wrong, and they especially don’t always get it THIS wrong, but when they do it leaves a taste in the mouth so bad that even that delicious cheap wine from Trader Joe’s can’t douse....

  Wow.  What a year.  To those who are reading this:  Congratulations.  You survived 2020.  It was a psychological tornado that upended our way of life and shook us to the core.  A human molotov cocktail shaken not stirred, chased down with a couple shots of chartreuse.  And among the many many things that were ravaged by its chaos was the movie industry.  Productions were halted.  Release dates were pushed.  And every streaming service out there swooped in like a bird of prey to capitalize on the opportunity to become the primary purveyor of new and exclusive content (which is probably why most of us subscribe to every single one now.)  And unless the new COVID vaccine ramps up distribution, its looking like 2021 is going to be very similar (or at least the first half of it will anyway), which is why I decided that this year's most anticipated movie list would read as more of a movie wish list for 2021 instead.  Now ...