Nothing to Declare: Gringo, reviewed.

David Oyelowo and Sharlto Copley

Here's my NPR review of Gringo, a bloody farce that musters four good comic performances from primarily non-comedic actors in the service of nothing much.

Cloak & Dagger? I Hardly Know 'Er: Red Sparrow, reviewed

J-Law and Joel Edgerton make love and also war.

Red Sparrow, a nasty adaptation of a novel by C.I.A. veteran Jason Matthews starring Jennifer Lawrence and Joel Edgerton, is the Black Widow origin movie Marvel Studios will never make. I like a movie that gets at the existential misery of spycraft. Here's my NPR review.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: Annihilation! (emphasis mine)

Gina Rodriguez and Natalie Portman breach the perimeter in Annihilation. (Paramount)

"Annihilation" and What's Making Us Happy

NPR

Here is a joke you will not hear on today's episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour, wherein I join old friends Linda Holmes and Stephen Thompson and new friend Daisy Rosario to dissect (heh) Annihilation, the new thriller from Ex Machina writer/director Alex Garland starring Natalie Portman and involving lots of cool but hella gross body horror stuff:

 Portman hand

Portman finger

Portman foot

Portmanteau

(Bows.)

Let nothing, nothing go to waste. You can hear the episode here.

Vibranium v Unobtanium: A Slate Investigation

Hey, what's my costume made out of again? (Disney/Marvel)

Most of Black Panther is set in the imaginary African nation of Wakanda, a technological utopia whose monarchs have for centuries observed a strict policy of isolationism, keeping would-be colonizers at bay by hiding their nation’s wealth and scientific advancement from the outside world. We’re told in the movie’s very first minute that Wakanda’s prosperity derives from its abundance of Vibranium, and that this bounty was delivered via meteorite long before humans walked the Earth.

And for a resource they're trying to keep secret, the Wakandans sure talk about it a lot. 

Even more than the characters in Avatar (Remember Avatar? Nominated for nine Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director for my boy James Cameron? Still the highest-grossing movie in the history of movies?) speak the much-derided name of that movie's extraterrestrial miracle metal, Unobtanium.

A lot more.

For this Slate piece, I did the transcription. And the math.

Field Notes. I should've let my mom teach me shorthand like she wanted.

Petty Larceny: Den of Thieves, reviewed.

He's the Sheriff: Gerard Butler, under fire. (STX)

Here's something I mean with all the generosity of spirit that I hope I possess in my heart: Den of Thieves, a new—well, newly released—crime movie, is not as bad as one might expect the directorial debut from the screenwriter of A Man Apart and London Has Fallen to be. That's because writer-director Christian Gudegast has taken the greatest Los Angeles cops-and-robbers movie ever made and replicated it as closely as one can while filming in Atlanta, with a growling Gerard Butler standing in for an ad-libbing Al Pacino.

My NPR review of Den of Thieves is here. I believe the phrase "coffee-table action flick" is a Klimek Original. 

The January Man: The Commuter, reviewed.

Vera Farmiga and Liam Neeson let the train take the strain. (Lionsgate)

Vera Farmiga makes Liam Neeson an indecent proposal in The Commuter, Neeson's latest January-release throat-puncher. Here's my NPR review.

Elf Quest: Bright, reviewed.

Joel Edgerton and Will Smith are, would you believe, mismatched partners. (Netflix)

The alarming lesson of Netflix's new Will Smith-toplined, David Ayer-directed human-&-orc buddy cop thriller Bright is that I am, apparently, not Too Old For This Shit.

Only someone who didn't see xXx: The Return of Xander Cage or Furious 8 could proclaim this this worst movie of 2017. Let's be reasonable, now.

The Carol From the Black Lagoon: The Shape of Water, reviewed.

Sally Hawkins and Octavia Spencer play janitors at a secret government facility. (Fox Searchlight)

Good news: Guillermo Del Toro's new movie is the best one he's made in English! Even if it doesn't kick quite as much undead ass as Blade II. Here's my NPR review.