Ed Wood (1994)::rating::5::rating::5::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

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Captain Marvel (2019)::rating::3.5

Captain Marvel takes us all the way back to the glorious 90s, when the internet came screaming through rickety modems and Pepsi was available as a clear liquid. Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) has been living with and fighting for the Kree, an advanced alien race. When she crashes on Earth during the time of Alanis…

ByTodd WoffordMarch 8, 20190Comments

The Drink Menu The Podcast

Cinemavino — Episode 13: The King We All Deserve::rating::0

Our discussion this week involves what cast and crew we'd love to hang with behind the scenes. Put another way, who would we want to have a beer (or two) with? Now that I think about it, I'd like to change my answer to Babe. I think that little hog and I would just laugh and…

ByTodd WoffordMarch 6, 20190Comments

Latest The Archive

Free Solo (2018)::rating::4

M idway through Free Solo, rock climber Alex Honnold goes in for a brain scan. Honnold is training to scale the granite face of Yosemite's El Capitan, without the benefit of ropes or harnesses. A curious doctor pours over the test results, wondering if Honnold's singular determination and fearlessness can be pinpointed by science. Sure enough,…

ByTodd WoffordMarch 5, 20190Comments

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Greta (2019)::rating::3

T he script for Greta seems a lot like a Frankenstein golem, a lumbering construct of thrillers plucked from the $1 DVD bin of a Walmart: Fatal Attraction, Psycho, Single White Female, and many others get stitched together, forming a brand new monster in the process. The movie that sits up and lurches off the table may…

ByTodd WoffordMarch 2, 20190Comments

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How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019)::rating::3.5

M ost modern animated movies have slowly slipped into the same unambitious groove occupied by elevator music. The same adjectives could be sprinkled onto any of them, like pepper onto rice cakes: Most are pretty, well-made, innocuous, and completely forgettable. The How to Train Your Dragon franchise has always been a notch above the rest, mainly because…

ByTodd WoffordMarch 2, 20190Comments