by Hunter Bush
Happy new year! Welcome. Whether you're a regular reader or this is your first time, this is Everything Old Is New Again, my bi-monthly column covering remakes, adaptations, and legacy sequels.
Read MoreDirected by Rob Marshall
Written by David Magee
Starring: Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Ben Whishaw
Running time: 2 hours and 10 minutes
MPAA rating: PG for cripes sake it’s Mary Poppins!
by Hunter Bush
Long-gap sequels, or "legacy sequels", are a tough nut to crack. Picking up an intellectual property from ten, twenty, thirty years or more ago, dusting it off and making something hopefully new and exciting out of it isn't as easy an undertaking as you might think. You have to draw enough from the original source material(s) to please older fans while remaining accessible to new audience members. I am immensely happy to say that Mary Poppins Returns is one of the best I've seen.
Read MoreDirected by Otto Bathurst
Written by Ben Chandler & David James Kelly
Starring Taron Egerton, Jamie Foxx and Ben Mendelsohn
Running time 1 hr 56 minutes
MPAA rating PG-13 for extended sequences of violence and action, and some suggestive references.
by Hunter Bush
Robin Hood is fun, in a big, silly, action movie way. Much more fun than I was expecting, honestly, but it wears its influences on its sleeve so earnestly that it got a little exasperating. As it is the Thanksgiving season (and I've been watching probably entirely too much Great British Baking Show), I'll use a cooking metaphor: Otto Bathurst's Robin Hood isn't a new recipe, but it adds new spices: war movies, Christopher Nolan Batman films & political protest imagery. I guess, then, my biggest problem is that certain bites felt over-seasoned.
Read Moreby Hunter Bush
Well this is it, gang. The final EOINA of the year. Jesum Crow, 2018 really feels like it's been a lot longer than standard year-length, doesn't it? I know it's been especially rough for some of us, but writing these columns for y'all is, honestly, a highlight for me. A somewhat stressful highlight, I won't lie, but a highlight just the same. So thank you, as ever, for reading.
Read MoreDirected and co-written by David Gordon Green
Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer and Andi Matichak
Running time : 1 hour 46 minutes
MPAA rating: R for horror violence and bloody images, language, brief drug use and nudity
by Hunter Bush
Is it weird to tell you I got emotional during Halloween 2018? Well I did. My eyes welled up during the finale, watching the culmination of a 40-year battle with evil reach its close. Seeing how the story of Laurie Strode and Michael Myers finally ends...for now. Because, let's be real: this won't be the last Halloween movie. By hook or by crook, there will be more but that knowledge shouldn't diminish your enjoyment of any of them.
Read Moreby Hunter Bush
You ever get the feeling you've been working too hard? Overthinking something that should be simple?
Read MoreWritten and Directed by Susanna Fogel
Starring Mila Kunis, Kate McKinnon, Justin Theroux
Runtime: 1 hour and 56 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for violence, language throughout, some crude sexual material and graphic nudity
by Hunter Bush
The Spy Who Dumped Me, as you may be able to tell, is a spy action/comedy that is living its best life when leaning on what sets it apart from the spy action movies it is ostensibly lampooning. As a spy movie, TSWDM is only so-so, featuring the obligatory globe-hopping location changes, "trust no one" attitude and face/heel turns the genre has worn into the ground. On the other hand, as a buddy comedy with two female leads, it soars.
Read Moreby Hunter Bush
Hoo boy, it's been hot here in Philly. Welcome to Summer, I guess? More like 'Welcome to Pre-Autumn' as I like to think of it. As a kid, summer always meant a break from school, so that was nice, but I was never a big fan of the heat. I love to swim, despite how often I've seen Jaws (or Deep Rising, hahaha...) but that's about it for me, summer-wise. Even as a kid, I preferred the air-conditioned darkness of a movie theater.
So if you're like me, Everything Old is New Again is here to help! Here at EOiNA, I look into the Remakes, Adaptations and Legacy (or Long-Gap) Sequels making it to theaters in the coming months. But, before we get down to business...
Read MoreDirected by Stefano Sollima (2018)
Starring Josh Brolin, Benicio Del Toro, Catherine Keener
Running time 2 hours 2 minutes
MPAA rating: R
by Hunter Bush
Before this evening, before seeing it, I thought everything about Sicario: Day of the Soldado was...a bit of a mess. The sequel to a movie that doesn't need one, Sicario 2 (as it was originally marketed) traded in the numeric for a subtitle, the linguistic hodgepodge "Day of the Soldado" (soldier). Why not just pick a lane and call it either Day of the Soldier or Dia Del Soldado? It probably has to do with Sony wanting to build a franchise on the good Sicario name and worrying that an all-Spanish title would alienate audiences. That might seem pessimistic but it's obviously the direction Sony & Co. want to head in. Intellectually, that bothers me. It's an obvious, and somewhat clumsy cash-grab. But, if Sicario: Day of the Soldado is what cash-grabs look like in 2018, I'm...kind of fine with it.
Read MoreDirected by Bart Layton (2018)
by Hunter Bush
To say that American Animals has a complicated relationship with reality would be a fair assessment. From the jump, we are told that this both is and is not based on an entirely true story, which I kept in mind as the narrative unfolded before me.
Read MoreDirected by Morgan Neville (2018)
by Hunter Bush
The world needs more people like Fred Rogers in it.
I already held that sentiment before seeing Won't You Be My Neighbor?, Morgan Neville's biographical documentary of Rogers. What I didn't realize until after seeing it was how great that need truly is.
Read MoreDirected by Ron Howard [but also, let's be honest, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller] (2018)
by Hunter Bush
Solo: A Star Wars Story is the least satisfying of the new era of Star Wars films.
I wasn't sure what foot I wanted to start my review on, as there is good as well as bad to talk about here, but then I asked myself: "What would Han Solo do?" The answer, famously the subject of much nerd argument, is that Han would shoot first. Shooting first is one of the many things that define who the character of Han Solo is.
Read MoreDirected by Sara Driver (2018)
by Hunter Bush
Taken as a whole, Boom For Real is an attempt to contextualize painter Jean-Michel Basquiat by shining a light on his early teenage years, when he was learning to be the artist he would become. Filmmaker Sara Driver brings together the familiar documentary materials to create a portrait of Basquiat that may seem simple, but is as nuanced and meaningful as his works themselves are.
Read Moreby Hunter Bush
Howdy, cinemaniacs! Welcome to Everything Old is New Again (EOiNA to her friends), your bi-monthly update on Hollywood's long-standing love of Adaptations, Remakes, and Legacy Sequels. In fact, now that I think about it, the last two movies I watched as of this writing were both adaptations: Wayne's World was inspired by the popular SNL sketch and Full Metal Jacket was based on the book The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford. See what I mean?
Read MoreDirected by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo
by Hunter Bush
I've seen Avengers: Infinity War! I've seen it, gang and I was sworn to secrecy about it! For real. I wasn't even supposed to tell anyone that I was going or where or when! I dunno about you, but I'd never had a major entertainment monopoly give me the "this stays between us" agreement. What would happen if I told people? Maybe Hulk would come and crush my favorite DVDs into dust or Scarlet Witch would hex me so french fries would taste like drywall forever? The theoretical horrors are endless... but probably Captain America would just show up (with that beard) and tell me how disappointed he was in me. And that would hurt worst of all.
Read MoreDirected by Jeff Wadlow (2018)
by Hunter Bush
Without spoiling the ending, Blumhouse's Truth Or Dare blows the opportunity to have a series of movies where a Demon corrupts kids' games to make them deadly. Just imagine 2020's Duck, Duck, Goose, where a possessed teen is transformed into a horrendous cygnine creature, honking through a bloody bill full of sharp teeth or 2023's Red Rover, whose poster shows a line of battleworn 20-somethings with interlocked arms holding kitchen knives and meat cleavers.
Read MoreDirected by Greg Berlanti (2018)
by Hunter Bush
My pithy review of Love, Simon is that it's a step in the right direction, but doesn't exactly put its best foot forward.
I'm not here to besmirch anyone having a good time and I don't want to belabor the point, so I'll put all my problems with Love, Simon up front; while its message is an important one, as a movie, it's pretty average. 20th Century Fox's big talking point is that it's the first major studio romantic comedy to feature a gay lead, and while that is definitely a big deal, I wish that honor had gone to a better overall movie.
Read Moreby Hunter Bush
Hello there! Welcome to Everything Old is New Again, Vol. 2: March and April, 2018. If you're new to the column, EOiNA is where I spotlight some upcoming films that are inspired in some way by a previously existing concept, work or franchise: remakes, adaptations or long-gap sequels.
Read MoreDirected by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein
by Hunter Bush
Game Night has an absolutely amazing cast but the true star of the movie is the writing. The script, by Mark Perez, takes a pretty straightforward plot, a group of friends involved in a murder mystery party that may not be simulated after all, and continually takes it in unexpected directions. For instance, who'd have thought you could get heart and laughs (and some dry heaves) from a scene where a husband and wife clean up a bullet wound?
Read MoreDirected by Nicolai Fuglsig (2018)
by Hunter Bush
I was instructed by Moviejawn HQ to focus solely on Michael Shannon for the duration of my viewing of 12 Strong; his performance, how his character's actions help move the story along, etc., etc. But that gets increasingly harder to do as the movie goes on. Here’s the bad news, gang: there isn't nearly enough Michael Shannon in this flick.
Read More