A.I., Boomer: "Here," reviewed."

Robin Wright and Tom Hanks get decades shaved off by an A.I. tool called Metaphysic Live in Here. (Sony)

On Here, the reunion of Forrest Gump principals, for the Paper of Record.

Lots here about Bob Zemeckis’s obsession with still-janky digital de-aging tech. Spike Lee’s 2020 war-vet drama Da Five Bloods achieved more stirring results by making no attempt to hide its 60-something-year-old cast members’ ages in the flashback scenes set during their combat tours in Vietnam half a century prior.

I’m rooting for Zemeckis. Flight is great. I liked Allied, his 2016 WWII espionage thriller that no one saw, too.

Burning Chrome: "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga," reviewed.

Drive-By Truckers: Tom Burke and Anya Taylor-Joy in Furiosa. (Warner Bros. / Jasin Boland)

Picaresque in form and Biblical in its savagery, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is the first entry in the five-film Max-iad that unfolds over years instead of days. A revenge flick about the futility of revenge, it sticks the landing, and then binds itself too tightly to that movie we all loved 9 (!) years ago in its closing moments. But it’s still a marvel.

My full Washington City Paper review is here.

"Civl War" Is an Irresponsible Tour-de-Force

Kirstin Dunst as photojournalist Lee Smith. (Murray Close/A24)

Wherein Ex Machina auteur Alex Garland’s immaculate craft bumps up against his dodgy judgment. This is a yelling-fire-in-a-crowded theater movie. Leave the destruction of the White House to clowns like Roland Emmerich, FFS. My Washington City Paper review is here.

The Desert of the Real, in the Real Desert: "Dune Part Two," reviewed.

Timothée Chalamet and Denis Villeneuve on location on Arrakis. (Niko Tavernise)

I feel better about my headline than I do about “the sandworm has turned.” Reviewed for WCP.

More Power, More Responsibility, More Everything: "Spider Man: Across the Spider-Verse," reviewed.

Spider-confederates Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy share a quiet moment in Across the Spider-Verse. (Sony)

My Washington City Paper review of the lovely new animated sequel Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is here.

Aaaaaaaand 2018 All Things Considered feature with a number of the creative people inovlved with Into the Spider Verse — comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis, screenwriters/producers Phil Lord & Chris Miller, and directors Peter Ramsay & Rodney Rothman — is still here.

Vin Diagram: "Bloodshot," reviewed.

Memento and Iron Man 3 star Guy Pearce with Vin Diesel in a comic book adaptation that shamelessly rips off Memento and Iron Man 3, among other films. (Sony)

If the last movie I ever get to see in the theater is a goddamn Vin Diesel vehicle, I’m gonna die very angry. My review of Bloodshot is here.

Bovine Intervention: "First Cow," reviewed.

Orion Lee and John Magaro play friends and business partners in 1820s Oregon. (A24)

Full disclosure: I saw First Cow, the new 19th century-set frontier drama from cowriter/director Kelly Reichardt last night at a screening that was followed by a Q&A with the filmmaker herself. At the end of the evening, she saw me crutching along—I had arthroscopic surgery to repair my meniscus two weeks ago today—and she held the door for me.

That decent gesture did not in any way influence my NPR review of First Cow, which is here.

Toff Guys: "The Gentlemen," reviewed.

Charlie Hunnam and Hugh Grant in Guy Ritchie’s crime caper The Gentlemen. (Christopher Raphael)

An hour after my review of Guy Ritchie’s last crime comedy posted, someone from Rotten Tomatoes wrote me to ask if I deemed the movie, in my professional opinion as a botanist, Fresh or Rotten. They couldn’t tell! And it was good of them to follow-up. They don’t have an option for Fresh With Reservations, which is where I’m at on this one, as I am compelled to explain in the last paragraphs of my NPR review.