Author: Josh Moorhead

BlacKkKlansman, the new film from singular filmmaker Spike Lee and man-as-Hollywood-rocket ship producer Jordan Peele, is an unlikely, unbelievable, necessary and righteously incendiary horror film. While it is being marketed as something of “you’ll never believe it” (that much is true) true story, with sardonic comic edge, the film is forced to take a turn into puncturing literalism due to current events. One longs to be in an America where the story of Ron Stallworth, a quickly promoted black police officer in late-70s Colorado Springs that infiltrates and undercuts the Klan, plays as an aghast, rompish, victory lap and finger…

In a move that feels roughly equivalent to admitting Rodney Dangerfield to the stodgy golf club in Caddyshack, the Oscars, by way of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, are going to let loose and show some ankle with a new “Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film” category. If you’re an Academy nerd, old-timer or one of the millions upon millions of people who have stopped tuning in — last year’s ceremony was the lowest rated, ever — this is pretty big news. After The Dark Knight was snubbed in ’08/’09 the Academy took the move to broaden their Best Picture category to…

Comedian, podcaster and curmudgeon extraordinaire Marc Maron (Glow) is reported to be joining The Joker cast. The feature, set to be released October 2019, will show the alt origin of the clown prince of crime through the able visage of Joaquin Phoenix and will be disconnected from the greater (?) DCEU. Robert De Niro and Frances Conroy (American Horror Story, Six Feet Under) also star. The movie will be directed by Todd Phillips (Old School, The Hangover Series) and produced by, ahem, Martin Scorsese. We are not living in an alternate timeline. Or maybe we are. But this is all in this one,…

How good is Mission: Impossible – Fallout? Three quarters of the way through it I realized I had totally forgotten I was supposed to be reviewing it. Why’s that a big deal? Well, have you ever tried counting the nuts and bolts on a rollercoaster in the middle of the ride? That is perhaps the most tired metaphor for action cinema. “A real rollercoaster!” But exiting the theater that was the only metaphor that really made sense. The propulsive nature and relentless tension of the experience of Fallout pulls the feeling over two and a half hours that you’re used to waiting two and a…

Open that file on your mental desktop that says “Cannot Be Real.” Get ready for more reality that you simply cannot reconcile. Put on your Made In China MAGA hat or kneel on the sidelines — because you’re not ready for what Sacha Baron Cohen is putting out there with Who Is America. Who Is America would be the kind of “step too far” subversive satire that the cultural left would applaud as an evocation of the current state of American affairs if it wasn’t, you know, real.  This elevates the material of Cohen’s latest project from not just the theater of the…

Our times are those of impossible things happening. And sometimes those things are actually good. In the most unlikely twist in M. Night Shyalaman’s career since “makes a good movie again” the first trailer for Universal’s Glass is here. The not entirely surprising sequel to Split (2016) is also the entirely shocking sequel to 2000’s highly-underrated-but-grown-in-esteem-since Unbreakable. At its release, Shyamalan’s follow-up to The Sixth Sense left the general audience underwhelmed after his break-onto-the-scene stunner. The long and winding road since has had lows that hardly bear repeating and not so much highs as signs of renewed promise that peaked with Split’s creepy thrills. Showing he has some cunning left…

How to immediately alienate an audience? Open with a line from a poem you wrote when you were in college: “Belief is real but also a Mel Gibson movie / Your heroes were grand myths until their lesser sequels in 2003.” As a culture, we’ve reached peak #problematic. James Gunn is kaputz on the franchise he breathed so much impossible life into, Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s also safe to bet that he will be immediately excommunicated from the industry writ large. This all stems from some pretty crazy tweets he tweeted some ten years ago, or in internet years,…