March 31, 2026
jmunney
Cinema, Movie Reviews
Annette Bening, Ben Petrie, Christian Bale, Dead Lover, Demetri Martin, Ego Nwodim, Eric Edelstein, Grace Glowicki, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Jake Gyllenhaal, Jeannie Berlin, Jessie Buckley, Joe Spano, John Magaro, Julianne Hough, Karen Huie, Leah Doz, Lori Alan, Louis Cancelmi, Lowen Morrow, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Matthew Maher, Meryl Streep, Nichole Sakura, Penélope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard, Steve Purcell, The Bride!, Vanessa Bayer, Zlatko Burić
Oh, how alive it is to feel to be dead! (CREDIT: Warner Bros./Screenshot; Cartuna x DWECK)
The Bride!
Starring: Jessie Buckley, Christian Bale, Annette Bening, Jake Gyllenhaal, Penélope Cruz, Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, Matthew Maher, Zlatko Burić, Jeannie Berlin, Julianne Hough, Louis Cancelmi, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Steve Purcell, Ego Nwodim, Nichole Sakura, Meryl Streep, Vanessa Bayer, Demetri Martin, Joe Spano, Eric Edelstein, Lori Alan, Karen Huie
Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Running Time: 126 Minutes
Rating: R
Release Date: March 6, 2026 (Theaters)
Dead Lover
Starring: Grace Glowicki, Ben Petrie, Leah Doz, Lowen Morrow
Director: Grace Glowicki
Running Time: 84 Minutes
Rating: Unrated
Release Date: March 20, 2026 (Theaters)
Whoa, hey, two wacky romances inspired by Frankenstein coming out within a few weeks of each other? One of them’s a major studio release, while the other’s a super-independent low-budget scamp. What do you think about that? Well, here’s what I think about that!
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January 29, 2024
jmunney
Cinema, Movie Reviews
Adam Driver, Alan Tudyk, Alec Newman, All of Us Strangers, Amber Heard, Andrew Haigh, Andrew Scott, Angelique Cabral, Aquaman, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Ariana DeBose, ason Momoa, Bruce Herbelin-Earle, Calah Lane, Callum Turner, Charlotte Ritchie, Chris Buck, Chris Diamantopoulos, Chris Pine, Claire Foy, Courtney Henggeler, DCEU, Della Saba, Dolph Lundgren, Ellie White, Evan Peters, Fawn Veerasunthorn, Ferrari, Freya Parker, Gabriel Leone, George Clooney, Giuseppe Festinese, Hadley Robinson, Harris Dickinson, Harvey Guillén, Holt McCallany, Hugh Grant, Isy Suttie, Jack Mulhern, Jack O'Connell, James Wan, James Wolk, Jamie Bell, Jennifer Kumiyama, Jeremy Allen White, Jim Carter, Joel Edgerton, Jon Rudnitsky, Keegan-Michael Key, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Lily James, Luke Slattery, Martin Short, Mathew Baynton, Matt Lucas, Maura Tierney, Michael Mann, Murray McArthur, Natasha Rothwell, Nicole Kidman, Niko Vargas, Olivia Colman, Paterson Joseph, Patrick Dempsey, Patrick Wilson, Paul King, Paul Mescal, Penélope Cruz, Peter Guinness, Phil Wang, Rakhee Thakrar, Ramy Youssef, Randall Park, Rich Fulcher, Rowan Atkinson, Sally Hawins, Sam Strike, Sarah Gadon, Sean Durkin, Shailene Woodley, Simon Farnaby, Sophie Winkleman, Stanley Simons, Temuera Morrison, The Boys in the Boat, The Iron Claw, Thomas Elms, Tim FitzHigham, Timothée Chalamet, Tom Davis, Tom Varey, Tracy Ifeachor, Victor Garber, Will Coban, Wish, Wonka, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Zac Efron
CREDIT: NEON
Heading into the Christmas break, it seemed like I had a lot more new movies to catch up on than usual. Or maybe it was actually a normal amount, and I was just cataloging my filmgoing plans a little more closely than I typically do. Either way, it took me about a month, but I’ve finally checked off everything that was on my to-watch list. So let’s run down some quick thoughts on all of them!
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January 21, 2022
jmunney
Cinema, Movie Reviews
Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Israel Elejalde, Julieta Serrano, Milena Smit, Parallel Mothers, Pedro Almodóvar, Penélope Cruz, Rossy de Palma
Parallel Mothers (CREDIT: Sony Pictures Classics/Screenshot)
Starring: Penélope Cruz, Milena Smit, Israel Elejalde, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Rossy de Palma, Julieta Serrano
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Running Time: 120 Minutes
Rating: R
Release Date: December 24, 2021 (Theaters)
Those mothers aren’t parallel! On the contrary, they intersect quite a bit!
But I’m okay with that! It probably would have been a worse movie if they had remained fully parallel. And I’m also okay with the title not being 100% mathematically correct. Pedro Almodóvar is more of a poet than a professor, after all. But now I’d kinda like to see him make a movie about a calculus professor…
Grade: Top-Notch Soap Operatics
January 6, 2022
jmunney
Cinema, Movie Reviews
Édgar Ramírez, Diane Kruger, Fan Bingbing, Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Penélope Cruz, Sebastian Stan, Simon Kinberg, The 355
The 355 (CREDIT: Robert Viglasky/Universal Pictures)
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Diane Kruger, Penélope Cruz, Fan Bingbing, Sebastian Stan, Edgar Ramirez
Director: Simon Kinberg
Running Time: 124 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for Very Loud Guns and Some Torture
Release Date: January 7, 2022 (Theaters)
Like pretty much every other spycraft movie ever, The 355 left me reeling with bewilderment over my lack of understanding about what exactly was going on. About 20 minutes in, I wondered, “Did I miss something while looking down at my phone or taking a swig of water?” That’s pretty par for the course. What’s less par is the fact that this particular spy movie stars a quintet of ladies who have all garnered plenty of awards recognition over the course of their careers. The title, after all, is a reference to a code name used by a female agent during the American Revolution. But ultimately that feminine energy makes hardly any difference whatsoever.
The 355 (CREDIT: Universal Pictures)
Basically there’s some to-do about some MacGuffin that could apparently destroy the world if it winds up in the wrong hands. So a team of allies and former rivals from all around the world forms on the fly to ensure that this doesn’t happen. There’s also some business about Jessica Chastain’s CIA agent character being betrayed by her partner (Sebastian Stan). I couldn’t figure out what his motivation was. Ultimately I began to entertain the idea that perhaps these actors were just as oblivious as I was about the details of their characters’ mission. They never betrayed any doubt in their performances, but it’s kind of interesting to consider the amount of blindness that could potentially go into pulling off a plot this knotty. Also, Penélope Cruz’s character is a therapist, and it’s clear that she is not used to field work that’s this high-stakes. So I kind of wish the focus had been more on her.
There might be some readers of this review who are shouting at me, “What are you talking about?! This made perfect sense! I know exactly what happened!” But a comprehensible plot is only half the battle here. There also needs to be style and momentum. Alas, though, The 355 for the most part alternates between deafening gun shootouts and frequently whispered conversations. Oh well, that’s January cinema for ya. The nonsense has to go somewhere.
The 355 is Recommended If You Like: The promise of a “Dewey Decimal System for Cyberattacks”
Grade: 2 out of 5 Common Enemies
January 6, 2020
jmunney
Cinema, Movie Reviews
Antonio Banderas, Asier Etxeandia, Cecilia Roth, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Pain and Glory, Pedro Almodóvar, Penélope Cruz, Raúl Arévalo
CREDIT: Sony Pictures Classics
There are two moments in Pain and Glory that really hit me and made me go, “This! Is! Cinema!” The first comes when an animated sequence accompanies Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas) telling us about how he learned about the subjects he should have learned in school by instead experiencing them later in life. Hurray for mixed media! The second is the meta ending, which I don’t want to spoil, in case anyone reading hasn’t seen it, but I do want to talk about it, so I suppose I’ll throw in a SPOILER WARNING. It turns out that the flashback scenes with a young Salvador and Penélope Cruz as his mom are actually a film-within-the-film directed by the adult Salvador, and that is such a lovely framing device. [END SPOILER WARNING] And one more thing! There’s a terrifically funny scene in which Salvador and his leading man Alberto (Asier Etxeandia) skip a post-screening Q&A they were supposed to attend but then phone in and the audience gets to hear the vicious, but also slapstick argument they get into. As is typical of Pedro Almodóvar, Pain and Glory is liable to make you laugh aplenty and go, “What a thing it is to be alive!”
I’ll go ahead and give Pain and Glory 11 Chases out of 15 Dragons.
February 7, 2019
jmunney
Cinema, Movie Reviews
Asghar Farhadi, Carla Crampa, Everybody Knows, Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, Ricardo Darín, Todos lo saben
CREDIT: Teresa Isasi/Focus Features
Starring: Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Ricardo Darín
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Running Time: 132 Minutes
Rating: R for Spanish Profanity
Release Date: February 8, 2019 (Limited)
If you sit down to watch Everybody Knows, you will probably wonder, “What is it that everybody knows?” I know I certainly did. About a half hour or so in, I had a pretty good idea of what it could be, then that suspicion grew into a more fully formed guess, and ultimately my powers of deduction proved to be precisely on point. I do not say this to toot my own horn, but rather, to explain that Everybody Knows makes the answers to its central mystery crystal clear. Far from being frustrated by obviousness, I appreciated that it guided me to exactly where it wanted me to go.
Having previously seen The Salesman and now this latest feature, I know the films of Asghar Farhadi to be about the trauma of outside forces testing the strength of familial units. In this case, the kidnapping of a teenage girl is the impetus for revealing one family’s most sacred secrets. Laura (Penélope Cruz) is a Spanish woman living in Argentina who has returned to her hometown with her two kids in tow for a wedding. When her daughter Irene (Carla Crampa) disappears, she is forced to resolve what lingers from the past with her childhood friend and former lover Paco (Javier Bardem). Farhadi has a knack for understanding that the potential paths of highly stressful situations can swing on a pendulum from further disaster to healing reconciliation. The resolution of Everybody Knows is profoundly, cathartically satisfying – the work of a master craftsman operating like clockwork.
Everybody Knows is Recommended If You Like: Asghar Farhadi’s filmography, The Vanishing
Grade: 4 out of 5 Family Secrets
November 8, 2017
jmunney
Cinema, Movie Reviews
Agatha Christie, Daisy Ridley, Derek Jacobi, Hercule Poirot, Johnny Depp, Josh Gad, Judi Dench, Kenneth Branagh, Leslie Odom Jr., Lucy Boynton, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Marwan Kenzari, Michelle Pfeiffer, Murder on the Orient Express, Murder on the Orient Express 2017, Olivia Colman, Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe
CREDIT: Nicola Dove/Twentieth Century Fox
This review was originally posted on News Cult in November 2017.
Starring: Kenneth Branagh, Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Josh Gad, Derek Jacobi, Leslie Odom Jr., Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, Marwan Kenzari, Olivia Colman, Lucy Boynton, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Running Time: 114 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for Stab Wounds and Attempted Gun Wounds
Release Date: November 10, 2017
Kenneth Branagh’s take on Hercule Poirot, one of the most famous and prolifically portrayed detectives in English literary history, is the sort of man who cannot enjoy his breakfast unless his two eggs are perfectly symmetrically arranged. As he puts, “I can only see the world as it should be.” His skill at identifying culprits so precisely derives from his distaste for his surroundings being askew in any capacity. And when a crime has been committed, things are certainly askew. For a Poirot newbie like myself, this thesis statement is clear and compelling enough. It points to a tradition that has led to a recently predominant style in which brilliant detectives do not fit on a normative intellectual scale.
As for how this version of this most classic of Poirot cases plays out, Branagh is eager to put his many new spins on locked room mystery tropes. But first, certain typical patterns are unavoidable. Each passenger must be introduced with just enough color to make everyone a legitimate suspect, and the camerawork must be painstakingly particular to note every cabin, door, and hidden compartment. But once the setup is through, there is fun to be had (or at least attempted) in mixing up expectations. Oftentimes, characters in these stories try to get away with little lies or hide pieces of their identities that ultimately prove to be quite telling. In this case, the experiment – and alas, mistake – is that everyone gives themselves away with such dishonesty.
A good mystery should be a few steps ahead of most of its viewers. Branagh does indeed pull that off, but he is also a few steps ahead of his own movie, which is not similarly advisable. The result is an end product in which the love for the genre is clear, but the volume at which it is being poked and prodded is too much weight to bear. Most of the performances are overly stiff, stuck in roles within roles in which the unnatural seams start to show. Only Michelle Pfeiffer manages to truly cut loose. Branagh’s formal openness is a good start, but ultimately a star-studded affair like this one requires much more lasting personalities to really hit.
Murder on the Orient Express is Recommended If You Like: Agatha Christie completism, Marvelous mustaches, the Michelle Pfeiffer Renaissance
Grade: 2.75 out of 5 Symmetrical Arrangements
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