Movie Review: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962)

4.5/5 Reviewed December 28, 2022 “When the Legend becomes Fact, print the Legend.” As the saying goes, never meet your heroes, and this surprisingly melancholic look at Western progress, love, politics, and the gunslinger brings that home. Jimmy Stewart plays Ransom, an eastern lawyer who decides to seek his future in the west, only to

Movie Review: Babylon (2022)

3.5/5 Reviewed December 28, 2022 Hard R-rated Singin’ in the Rain tribute film which chronicles the rise and fall of various players in the early Hollywood of the 1920s and 30s, particularly the transition from silent films to Talkies. It’s loud, bombastic, excessively debaucherous, but with some real heart about the wild glory of Hollywood’s

Movie Review: The Polar Express (2004)

3/5 Reviewed December 25, 2022 Tom Hanks-led fully motion-captured animated Christmas film about a boy, wavering in his belief of Santa Claus, who boards a mystical train full of children headed to the North Pole. It’s…a very strange film, based on a book by a West Michigan author. It starts off pretty slow and the

Movie Review: Babylon A.D. (2008)

1.5/5 Reviewed December 13, 2022 See the score above, and imagine how a movie starring Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Mark Strong, and Mélanie Thierry can somehow be that bad. And yet…it is. Sci-fi flick about a mercenary hired to escort a young lady and her nun protector from Central Asia to NYC, all while the

Movie Review: The Menu (2022)

3.5/5 Reviewed December 8, 2022 Deliciously fun satirical thriller about a group of elites that gather at a prestigious island restaurant for a luxurious dinner…that doesn’t go as they expect. The premise is really fun, the top cast does incredible work, and the stylistic execution is phenomenal. The satire can be biting, but isn’t as

Movie Review: Violent Night (2022)

3.5/5 Reviewed December 1, 2022 From the production company behind two of my favorite recent action films, Bullet Train and Nobody, comes this delightfully deranged tale of a drunk and depressed Santa (David Harbour) who, by chance, ends up delivering presents to a house where a group of mercs has taken a rich family hostage;