We’re off the deep end, watch as we dive in, we’ll never meet the ground. This week, Alonso, Matt and I dig into Bradley Cooper’s swoony remake of “A Star Is Born,” the wildly uneven comic book movie “Venom” and “The Hate U Give,” a powerful, Young Adult take on...
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What the Flick?! Podcast
What the Flick?! Podcast 8/30/18
After 8 1/2 years, we’ve had to say goodbye to What the Flick?!, as you may have heard. But for the time being, at least, we’re reincarnating our YouTube film review show as a podcast. This week, Matt Atchity and I talk the historical thriller “Operation Finale,” the completely...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — Puzzle
Kelly Macdonald gets a rare chance to shine in a leading role as a wife and mother who reaches her 40s and finally figures out what she wants from life. Watching her blossom is sheer joy. And while solving jigsaw puzzles may not sound like the most cinematic pursuit, “Puzzle”...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
The sequel to the 2008 schmaltzy smash “Mamma Mia!” features even more characters and more subplots and more romantic entanglements. But it’s also less entertaining, the stakes are lower, and despite its frantic energy, it goes absolutely nowhere. It has its moments, though, so if you want an empty summer...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — Fireworks
“Fireworks” is a strange little anime movie with an uncomfortable sexist streak. It’s essentially an animated incarnation of “Sliding Doors,” with a couple of teens experiencing the same series of events in slightly different ways over the course of a day, leading up to their town’s annual fireworks extravaganza. But...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — I Feel Pretty
I have mixed feelings about “I Feel Pretty,” a high-concept, modern-day fairy tale. Amy Schumer stars as an insecure woman who suffers a head injury and believes she’s been magically transformed into the gorgeous bombshell she’s always dreamed of becoming — even though she’s unchanged on the outside. It’s a lot...
Read moreChristy by Request — After Hours
“After Hours” is a decidedly un-Scorseseish Martin Scorsese film: a light, goofy and surreal comedy with no real stakes. And yet all that brilliant craft is on display, the muscular cinematic energy, the taste for danger and the vivid sense of place within New York City that’s so often his...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — Midnight Sun
“Midnight Sun” does what it means to do for the people it means to do it for — and that might just be enough. Twelve-year-old girls will swoon at this weepy, doomed romance between a beautiful, sick girl (Bella Thorne) and the beautiful, hunky boy who dares to love her...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — Every Day
“Every Day” has a nice idea within nutty packaging. It’s an angsty teen romance based on a Young Adult novel about a spirit — or a soul, or something — that switches bodies every 24 hours. But in one of those bodies, he/she falls for that guy’s girlfriend: a sweet...
Read moreWine the Flick?! — Fifty Shades Freed
It’s the thrilling climax of the “Fifty Shades” series — mainly because it’s so deliriously bonkers and unintentionally hilarious. My dear friend and former fellow school mom Jen Wang came with me to see the original “Fifty Shades of Grey” — and, like me, she was masochistic enough to read...
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