Ex-Agent Provocateur: The Foreigner, reviewed.

"Let's just watch this movie on my phone." It's Chan v Brosnan in The Foreigner. (STX)

Here's my  NPR review of Martin Campbell's The Foreigner, which I enjoyed for its Northern Irish political skullduggery and for Pierce Brosnan's sleazy performance but found far less successful as a vehicle for producer-star Jackie Chan. In addition to a bunch of decent-but-not great movies (and the giant flop Green Lantern, which I never saw) Campbell made the best-in-class 007 adventure, Casino Royale, so a mediocre espionage film from him counts as a disappointment.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: Blade Runner 2049, Pop Culture Happy Hour: Blade Runner 2049, Voigt-Kampff'd.

Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford have a lot to talk about. (Stephen Vaughn / Alcon)

Any debate over whether Blade Runner 2049, a 35-years-later sequel to the cultiest cult film in the history of movies, has general-interest appeal should be put to rest by virtue of the fact that Stephen Thompson—the host of the three-way discussion of the film the comprises today's Pop Culture Happy Hour—liked it, too! Pal-for-Life Glen Weldon and I are this movie's core constituency. But when the Kung Fu Panda-loving Mr. Thompson gives his approval to an intense, nearly-three-hour dystopian future flick, you know it's got some moves.

You can listen in here, where the episode is posted along with my review from last week. I had to write it just a couple of hours after I saw Blade Runner 2049, but I think the piece stands up. I'm seeing the movie again tomorrow night at the National Air and Space Museum. I'm looking forward to spending another 163 minutes with a new stone classic.

Under the Skin Job: Blade Runner 2049, reviewed.

All I'm allowed to tell you is this is a photo of Ryan Gosling. (Stephen Vaughn)

I seldom write same-day reviews, but because Blade Runner 2049's embargo was abruptly lifted before it even screened in DC, I had to scramble. I'm very happy to be able to say it's a triumph, a satisfying much-later follow-up in the new tradition of Mad Max: Fury Road, Creed, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But... better than those, even, would you believe.

Here's the review. Enhance!

Barry, Plane and Not Tall: American Made, reviewed.

Domhnall Gleeson and Tom Cruise as two con men. (Universal)

Here's my NPR review of American Made, Doug Liman's heavily fictionalized but ecstatically true crime biopic starring Tom Cruise as C.I.A. gunrunner and dope smuggler Barry Seal. As I discuss in the piece, Liman's father, Arthur Liman, was heavily involved in the 1987 U.S. Senate hearings into the Iran-Contra affair, of which Seal's covert flights were an operational element. And here's Arthur.

FURTHER READING: I loved Cruise and Liman's prior collaboration, 2014's Edge of Tomorrow, and I wrote about it and discussed it on Pop Culture Happy Hour, as part of an episode about good movies that kinda tanked.

Double-Oh Snap! Kingsman: The Golden Circle, reviewed.

Taron Egerton, the very model of a modern British nongovernmental superspy.

Would you believe that John Denver's 1971 encomium to backwoods livin' "Take Me Home, Country Roads" is been featured in two 2017 films starring Katherine Waterston and two starring Channing Tatum, and not the same two? 

That's the kind of piercing observation I had no room for in my review of the new sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle, which reprises "Country Roads" from Alien: Covenant and Logan Lucky. I had the privilege of discussing both of those on Pop Culture Happy Hour in addition to writing about them. Anyway, I like British superspies. And I liked The Golden Circle. With reservations.

The Unclean House: mother!, reviewed.

Javier Bardem, Jennifer Lawrence and the chorus. (Paramount)

No one is under any obligation to like Darren Aronofsky’s mother! (sic) (or his mother) or any other movie (or person), obviously. Even so, mother! is the sort of challenging picture that offers a good test for whether a critic—regardless of where he or she stands on the question of the film’s artistic merit—has any imagination at all. I’ve seen some fine writing on this movie and some truly dreadful, dumb, reductive writing. I hope my own NPR review is one of the former specimens, even though it takes the form of a long argument against you reading it.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: Logan Lucky, discussed.

Workaholic artist Steven Soderbergh on the set of Logan Lucky. (Bleecker St.)

I dropped by NPR HQ to talk about Steven Soderbergh's return to features, Logan Lucky, with screenwriter and author Danielle Henderson and regular Pop Culture Happy Hour panelists Linda Holmes and Glen Weldon.  When we recorded this discussion, I'd taken the opportunity to see the movie a second time after filing my review, and my opinion on it had evolved a little. Anyway, you can find the episode here.

I wish I could put my finger on why it read to me as condescending in a Coenesque way the first time but not the second. I love the films of Joel and Ethan Coen. But the ones Logan Lucky most recalled for me, Raising Arizona and Fargo, are not among my favorites.

Hillbilly Elegy: Logan Lucky, reviewed.

Channing Tatum, Riley Keough, and Adam Driver as the luck-starved Logan clan. 

Logan Lucky, Steven Soderbergh’s return to features after a four-year “retirement” in prestige TV, is a lot of fun, though I’m not as high on it as some. I have the same reservations about it that I do about the Coen Brothers films it most readily recalls. Anyway, here’s my review.