Snake Oil: "Anaconda, reviewed."

Jack Black and Paul Rudd can’t save this ssssssssssstinker. (Sony Pictures)

You’ll want to sit down and do some exercises to limber up your brain before you try to process their supernova of perverse inspiration: Their new “Anaconda” is no mere reboot but in fact a midlife-crisis comedy about four pals who travel from Buffalo to the Amazon (as played by Queensland, Australia) to knock out a no-budget, guerilla-style remake of the 1997 Sony Pictures trash classic “Anaconda,” a fondly recalled object from their youths.

Still on the fence? Your stars are Paul Rudd and Jack Black, those winningly youthful 56-year-olds whose shtick is, like Rudd’s face, evergreen.

My Washington Post review of Anaconda, a toothless nomedy, is here.

"Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning," reviewed.

Tom Cruise has yet another plane to catch in The Final Reckoning. (Paramount)

Any new Mission flick is the start of a long relationship for me, and as with 2023’s Dead Reckoning, my estimation of the new one went up on a second viewing. It’s still a goddamn mess, though.

My Washington City Paper review of Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, the eighth and perhaps-but-also-perhaps-not climactic MIssion is here.

A Lost Time Accident: "A Working Man," reviewed.

I miss when David Ayer made real movies. My Village Voice review of Sabotage from 2013 is lost to time, but my NPR pieces on Ayer’s Fury, Suicide Squad, and Bright are all readily available. It’s a bummer that the guy who wrote Training Day and wrote and directed End of Watch is now doing shlock like A Working Man — which I reviewed in your Washington Post.