Review: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

Six years after the finale of Breaking Bad aired on AMC, series creator Vince Gilligan returned to one of the franchise’s lead characters with a feature-length film, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, to firmly conclude this portion of the Breaking Bad story. (This shouldn’t be confused with lead character Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), however, whose story is continued in AMC’s Better Call Saul.) Gilligan’s successfully returned to his signature story with Saul Goodman, but couldn’t generate the same results with Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul).

Review: It Chapter Two

Director Andy Muschietti and screenwriter Gary Dauberman return to the It franchise to invite us back to Derry, Maine. That damned clown is at it again. Only, this time, like a car ride to a new place, it (no pun intended) isn’t as scary or interesting on the second go around.

Review: Hustlers

The ink isn’t yet dry on the art that will frame the Great Recession. The few films that have been made around the defining event of the ‘00s each focus on a different subject; The Big Short shines a light on those who made out like bandits, The Wolf of Wall Street points the blame directly at its titular location, and Sorry to Bother You interrogates the human motivation behind greed. Hustlers, the newest addition to 2008 financial crisis’ wall of shame, is a street-level perspective of the working-class victims who could no longer afford to play it straight.

Review: Ad Astra

Writer-director James Gray follows up his criminally-underrated The Lost City of Z with a film that may just top it. Ad Astra sends Brad Pitt hurtling through space, interspersing peerless set pieces with character study, introspection, and societal commentary. No 2019 film has aspired to such awe-inspiring heights. No film in years has aspired to such heights and surpassed them.

Review: Pet Sematary

With movie studios scrambling to produce (and re-produce) recognizable intellectual property, famed author Stephen King and his work are in high demand. Directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer were brought on to adapt Pet Sematary, a 1983 King novel of the same name. The novel’s second adaptation in 30 years, the studio should’ve followed the book’s choice wisdom: sometimes dead is better.

Review: Coherence

In his 2013 directorial debut, writer-director James Ward Byrkit (Rango) delivered a science-fiction classic on a $50,000 budget. As Coherence will teach you, stranger things can happen.

Review: The Farewell

First shared as a story on the radio show This American Life, The Farewell is the second feature-length film by writer-director Lulu Wang. The Farewell is a deeply personal, both cheerful and solemn film about identity, the immigrant experience, and the role of family.

Review: No Country for Old Men

Eleven years after Fargo, the first film Joel and Ethan Coen should’ve been awarded an Oscar for, the Coen brothers finally took home the Academy’s top prize with No Country for Old Men. An old Hollywood adage surmises that directors never win Best Picture for their best work, but the Coen brothers certainly did.

Review: Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood

Writer-director Quentin Tarantino has regularly repeated his desire to carefully craft a 10-film filmography. In what would be his penultimate film (counting the two-part Kill Bill saga a single movie, as Tarantino does), his latest effort, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, combines the director’s best qualities and most frustrating attributes to deliver a polarizing experience that has remained on my mind since I left the theater.

Review: Midsommar

Fans of Ari Aster’s instant-classic horror movie Hereditary will recognize a similar framework in the writer-director’s sophomoric film, Midsommar. Although Midsommar has more in common with the thriller and mystery genres, Aster’s imprint is as clear as a sunny Scandinavian day. What Midsommar lacks in scares, it makes up in genuine laughs, captivating lore, and haunting imagery.