Blog - Page 72 of 74 - Movie Reviews by Todd Wofford

The Third Man (1949)::rating::5::rating::5::rating::5

I n the immediate aftermath of World War II, Vienna stood as a nexus where soot-stained cynicism met and mingled with nefarious opportunity. Like most of Europe, Austria struggled to rebuild after the destruction of the Third Reich. Industry was hobbled; food and medicine became scarce. The Third Man, one of the most beautiful and…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 9, 20181Comment

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A Star is Born (2018)::rating::4

T he premise of A Star is Born dates all the way back to the first decade of talking pictures. Its remaking has been a generational affair, with Judy Garland and James Mason, and then Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson taking respective swings. Bradley Cooper’s version doesn’t so much retrace the same well-worn path as use it…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 6, 20181Comment

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Venom (2018)::rating::1.5

V enom somehow manages to be frenetic and lifeless at the same time, like a corpse with current running through it. It writhes and twitches protractedly before turning into a smoldering, sparking heap. I would never be naïve enough to expect anything called Venom to be a Dean Martin Roast, but this is a joyless, dour two…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 5, 20180Comments

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Smallfoot (2018)::rating::3

T o borrow a baseball metaphor, most modern animated movies aim to send the ball to one of two spots in the stadium. Pixar goes Babe Ruth and points its bat straight to the rafters, where the glorious, intractable legacy of Bambi and Dumbo reside. After the best, most of the rest seem content to safely…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 3, 20180Comments

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Night School (2018)::rating::1.5

If it had been made in the 80s, Night School could’ve been one of those minor classics people still drunkenly quote at parties. I picture a John Candy/Matthew Broderick dynamic, for some reason. Unfortunately, the days of John Hughes and Harold Ramis have long passed, and the formula for Night School is just as stale and…

ByTodd WoffordSeptember 28, 20180Comments

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A Simple Favor (2018)::rating::3

A Simple Favor surgically slices into a subject that’s ripe and ready for satire: The modern mommy. It builds a labyrinthine murder mystery within the suburban topography of playdates and school projects. Unfortunately the plot careens wildly through some dark terrain and forces the audience to endure jarring and incongruous shifts in tone. Strong performances…

ByTodd WoffordSeptember 27, 20180Comments

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The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018)::rating::2.5

An unbalanced alchemy of diluted Harry Potter and Tim Burton’s fetish for the morbidly adorable, The House with a Clock in Its Walls never manages to be as clever and cuddly as it thinks it is. This cinematic avenue, with a group of amiable weirdos surrounded by suburban normality on all sides--call it Roald Dahl Boulevard—has been…

ByTodd WoffordSeptember 25, 20180Comments

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Crazy Rich Asians (2018)::rating::3.5

Crazy Rich Asians is pure cotton candy—two hours of fluffy entertainment built on an ironically cynical question: Could a true fairy tale still exist in the age of social media saturation and TMZ drudgery? The answer will depend on your own sentimentality and suspension of disbelief. If you can sift past a few gaps in credibility,…

ByTodd WoffordSeptember 21, 20180Comments

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Boogie Nights (1997)::rating::4

Alternately cheery and dreary, Paul Thomas Anderson’s porn de force shines a blacklight on the adult film industry, and its awkward transition into the era of VHS and HIV. Mark Wahlberg—sporting a prosthetic trouser hog—nails it as impressionable fuck boy Dirk Diggler. Burt Reynolds is his match as the Colonel Parker who ushers his very own…

ByTodd WoffordSeptember 21, 20180Comments

Laughable

Cannonball Run II (1984)::rating::0

The most disturbing thing about this movie resides in the fact that somebody somewhere thought it was a good idea to make it. I picture a mulleted movie executive in a seersucker suit, doing lines of Colombian Pure and puffing down Marlboro Reds. In that haze of 80s euphoria, a cleansing moment of clarity forms: …

ByTodd WoffordSeptember 20, 20180Comments