Us (2019)::rating::4::rating::4::rating::4

U s is one of those movies that will provoke polarized responses from audiences and lots of flowery adjectives from a needlessly verbose individual like me. At once, this movie is audacious, infectiously funny, and relentlessly weird. Writer-director Jordan Peele simultaneously blends unsettling suspense with an off-center wackiness that will frustrate some viewers and enthrall others.…

ByTodd WoffordMarch 22, 20190Comments

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Wonder Park (2019)::rating::2.5

I t was about midway through Wonder Park, and the little boy behind me and three seats over had already had his fill. He let out a bloodcurdling, paint-peeling scream. "I want race cars!!!" His mother shushed him, which only served to set a fire in the boy's threenager heart. He took his 80oz bucket of Mr.…

ByTodd WoffordMarch 20, 20190Comments

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Apollo 11 (2019)::rating::4

O n a sweltering day in September 1962, President John F. Kennedy outlined an audacious plan: Before the decade was over, the United States would put a man on the moon and safely splash him down on Earth. It'd been less than sixty years since the Wright Brothers sent their wobbly flyer for a glorified…

ByTodd WoffordMarch 19, 20190Comments

The Drink Menu The Podcast

Cinemavino, Episode 15 – Field of Screams::rating::0

Now, when it comes to the indulging of alcohol, I ain't no advocate of being reckless. That said, the internet is a wide world of hypotheticals, so we'll deal in that for a second. If a person were a grown-ass adult, they could play a decent drinking game out of our silly little podcast. In…

ByTodd WoffordMarch 17, 20190Comments

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The Kid (2019)::rating::3

"W hen legend becomes fact, print the legend." These words close the classic Western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and they a make fitting valediction for frontier mythology. Men like the Earps, the James Gang, and Billy the Kid have received so much posthumous embellishment that it's almost impossible to distinguish fact from fiction. Where dime…

ByTodd WoffordMarch 16, 20190Comments

Greatest

Ed Wood (1994)::rating::5

O f all the film directors who've ever amassed enough work for a coherent filmography, none are more challenging than Ed Wood. His paradoxical aesthetic boggles my ability to hand out star ratings. For example, Plan 9 from Outer Space is rightfully held as one of the absolute worst movies ever unleashed on the public. Yet, its pedestrian…

ByTodd WoffordMarch 14, 20190Comments

Latest Laughable

Camp Death III in 2D (2018)::rating::1.5

C amp Death III in 2D! clumps every moldering horror cliché into one cinematic spitwad and chucks it at the screen. For 80 minutes, it slowly slimes downward, leaving a goofy, gory, relentlessly nihilistic parody of old-school slasher flicks in its wake. Amusingly incoherent and unabashedly insensitive, Camp Death III is sure to provoke a range of…

ByTodd WoffordMarch 13, 20190Comments

Latest Laughable

A Madea Family Funeral (2019)::rating::1.5

A Madea Family Funeral filled me with a sense of grief. Not because it takes 100 minutes of my life and sends it clunking and sputtering down a garbage disposal, although it does that with considerable skill. No, this experience made me even sorrier for the passing of Jim Varney, because I would love to see…

ByTodd WoffordMarch 11, 20190Comments

The Drink Menu The Podcast

Cinemavino – Episode 14: Don’t Forget to Wear Your Hug::rating::0

W hen we started the Cinemavino podcast, I hadn't heard my voice since I started my own "radio show" at the age of ten. Holed up in my bedroom, I pilfered a tape recorder and talked about my favorite movies (Ghostbusters and Stars Wars, as I recall). I also remember talking about my baseball heroes, the Bash…

ByTodd WoffordMarch 11, 20190Comments

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Captain Marvel (2019)::rating::3.5

D espite its sweeping sociocultural ambition, Captain Marvel largely succeeds as robust, straightforward entertainment. A decent origin story, it benefits enormously from a skilled cast of well-placed actors and the reliable hum of the Marvel machine. While the female-driven production machetes a new trail through what had once been a male-dominated wilderness, the movie itself truly hits…

ByTodd WoffordMarch 8, 20191Comment