Oh man. Here I was thinking I was going to wrap up this retrospective without having to watch anything that was truly terrible. Good Lord, was I wrong. Rough Night is quite an apt title. This ill-fated attempt at a raunchy ensemble comedy was a chore to get through. Like …
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Ghost in the Shell
This film works so well on so many levels but falls short in almost as many areas. One could be much more forgiving of its shortcomings if it could be divorced from its status as an adaptation of an iconic and immensely influential anime film and viewed as an objective …
read moreCaptain America: The Winter Soldier
I have always been quite fond of Marvel Studios' interpretation of Black Widow. When she was introduced in Iron Man 2 back in 2010, Scarlett Johansson's Natasha Romanoff was poised to be realized as yet another fairly boilerplate female action hero; given little more to do than wear a skintight …
read moreHail Caesar!
Despite top billing, Scarlett Johansson's appearance in this film is actually quite brief. Johansson shows up in only two scenes; one toward the beginning and one toward the end of the movie, as a haughty, rambunctious actress who has become pregnant out of wedlock, forcing Josh Brolin's Eddie Mannix to …
read moreUnder The Skin
Under the Skin is one of my 4 favorite films of all time, easily my favorite role for Scarlett Johansson, and, I believe, the crowning performance of her career so far.
Jonathan Glazer's film uses the heavily interpretive narrative of a predatory alien lifeform disguised as a human female to …
read moreHer
Her feels a great deal like a feature-length Black Mirror episode. True to that form, it takes a premise that has the potential for both dystopian malaise and unexpected beauty and delivers both in equal measure. What makes this story so compelling is how its characters and narrative are so …
read moreHitchcock
As soon as this movie opened with a young Ed Gein murdering his brother with a shovel, shortly followed by Anthony Hopkins' Alfred Hitchcock strolling into frame and addressing the audience, I knew I was going to enjoy this one.
Like Hitchcock's productions themselves, this film has just enough of …
read moreLucy
This is notably the first entry in this series so far where the only real reason to watch the film in question is Scarlett's performance.
The premise that Lucy is built around is dumb as Hell. It's best to acknowledge that up front and go into it understanding that the …
read moreMarvel Studios Villains
Marvel Studios is starting to have an issue in developing their villains. Perhaps they always have, but the trouble is getting more and more evident.
This may come as a surprise so soon after Black Panther, which showcased Killmonger, one of the best villains the Marvel Cinematic Universe has produced …
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