Review: Deadpool 2 (2018)

* * *
Director: David Leitch
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin

Part of the charm of Deadpool was its inherent shabbiness. Made on a shoestring budget (at least by the standards of superhero/action movies), Deadpool turned its discount elements into a strength by making it part of the joke. Deadpool 2 has the benefit of having about twice the budget as its predecessor, which gives it a lot more flash in terms of its action pieces, but it still manages to maintain that industrial and minimalist aesthetic of the first. It adheres to the principle of movie sequels to "do the same thing, but more," but it manages to stay relatively true to its roots at the same time, which is surely no easy feat. Deadpool 2 is the equal to its original, better in certain respects but not quite as good in others, and certainly worth the price of admission.

Review: Hail, Caesar! (2016)

* * *
Director: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Starring: Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Channing Tatum, Alden Ehrenreich, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton

Good news and bad news. The good news is that Hail, Caesar!, which finds the Coen brothers in a loosey goosey kind of mood, is a treat for movie nerds, it's such an affectionately crafted paean to 1950s Hollywood and the moment when the old Hollywood started to fall away and make room for the new. The bad news is that, once you see it, you'll find yourself longing for full length versions of the Coen brothers' take on the Esther Williams swim and song movie, the singing cowboy B-movie, the swords and sandals biblical epic, and the Gene Kelly song and dance movie. Hail, Caesar is more a series of fun vignettes than anything, but when it's this entertaining it hardly matters that the plot is all dangling threads held together by the vague notion that the protagonist is experiencing a dark night of the soul.

Review: Sicario (2015)

* * * 1/2
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin

"Nothing will make sense to your American ears, and you will doubt everything you do." The world depicted in Denis Villeneuve's Sicario is one of chaos and pain, a world in which a good person trying to do the right thing in the right way doesn't stand a chance, though they won't realize it until the point where they're so completely beaten down that there's basically nothing left. It's a bleak movie, is what I'm saying, but it's also a powerful one that rivals Traffic in its depiction of the impact of the drug trade from both sides of the border between the US and Mexico. Like Villeneuve's Prisoners, this is a white-knuckle ride into the darker aspects of humanity and it's not for the feint of heart.