If John Woo had permitted the characters in “Silent Night” to speak, chances are that audiences would laugh them off the screen. Instead, the director gets right down to business, opening with a wordless chase sequence in which a sad dad (Joel Kinnaman) in a corny Christmas sweater sprints after a pair of speeding cars. … Read more
The training montage is an action movie staple, something you saw a lot of in the 1980s. During these montages, heroes would be seen pumping themselves up to get ready for one final fight. They’d lift weights, they’d load up on guns, and they’d get nice and sweaty. With “Silent Night,” Woo seems to be trying to stage … Read more
So is Donna’s survival a copout? Yes, but it’s a forgivable copout. The show knows that we want Donna and the Doctor back in the Tardis together, and it also knows we’re not gonna nitpick too much if the method of pulling this off is a little iffy. If this sort of development had happened … Read more
The impression of flawlessness is a tough standard to maintain. It’s what audiences have come to expect of Beyoncé since she debuted as one-fourth of Destiny’s Child in 1997, not merely because of her era-defining music and performances but because she executes it with such seeming ease. Surprise plays a role: It’s part of the … Read more
Like any good sitcom, “Spy x Family” is as much about the characters as it is about the shenanigans they get into. Sure, it’s fun to see Loid beat up some people or infiltrate a secret facility. What’s funnier and more wholesome is seeing this cold spy go fight a bunch of fellow spies in … Read more
Arriving a whopping 26 years after 1997’s cult-favorite Nickelodeon comedy, “Good Burger 2” fits the streaming-era trend in which audiences seek a nostalgia bump reconnecting with old favorites, like “Coming to America” or “Hocus Pocus” — not exactly classics so much as modest pleasures from more innocent times. In this obnoxiously unfunny followup from Paramount+, … Read more
Genies, at least in pop culture, have long been comic foils. Way back in 1940, in “The Thief of Bagdad,” Rex Ingram played Djinn, the movie’s larger-than-life genie — 100 feet tall in his ponytail and red diaper — as a sly, laughing soul man of lighthearted effrontery. The surrealist ’60s sitcom “I Dream of … Read more
Like a contracted movie star loaned out by a studio in Hollywood’s heyday, Godzilla has returned to Japanese parent company Toho after doing a stint in the U.S. MonsterVerse to take center stage in “Godzilla Minus One,” a stellar entry in the world’s longest continually running film franchise. Set in a devastated post-war Japan, Takashi … Read more
The more I think about it, the more I’m leaning toward declaring Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” the best movie of the year. At the very least, it’s a monumental achievement; a technical marvel that turns scene after scene of guys sitting in rooms talking about physics into something incredibly exciting. It doesn’t play like a biopic; it’s … Read more
In the years before Twitter was euthanized, I’d patiently wait for the onset of the holiday season, and the renewal in my feed of the great “Love Actually” Debate. Every year, the best and brightest of the world — middle management apparatchiks, underemployed magazine writers and hall of fame doomscrollers — would chime in, mostly … Read more