Mike Ryan

Sanders plays Bigger Thomas in such a unique, interesting way that I couldn’t help but be enthralled by his life. Unfortunately, the plot points in Wright’s novel, of all things, betray him.

Late Night is going to wind up being one of the best comedies of 2019.

I realize this is an important movie for Shia LaBeouf, but I’m not convinced it’s an important movie for us.

It’s a movie about hidden family secrets, with a comical amount of twists, and it plays more as melodramatic schlock. And I just happened to really be in the mood for melodramatic schlock.

Glass is a fascinating movie. Now, having said that, I should quickly point out that I did not enjoy this movie and I consider it, after a 19-year wait, one of the biggest personal disappointments I’ve ever experienced in a theater.

At the end of the day (or, anytime of the day, really) I think I admire Aquaman more than I like it. It’s certainly ambitious.

Bumblebee is a total delight.

This animated movie has more heart and emotion than most live actions films of this genre. If you give it a chance, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse will knock your socks off.

There’s a lot going on in Creed II, more than a movie featuring Ivan Drago really ever needed to have. But at its core, Creed II is about family.

Most of the film involves meeting yet another new character, then being told yet another long story about his or her mysterious past. At times, The Crimes of Grindelwald feels more like some sort of Harry Potter encyclopedia or appendices than it does an actual movie.

Look, I get it, scripted films are not documentaries. And, sometimes, creative license has to be used to move a story forward. But I’ve never seen a film distort its facts in such a punitive way. It’s like the movie wants to punish Freddie Mercury.

First Man is a movie to see in full IMAX because in that first scene after Neil and Buzz open the hatch, the whole screen suddenly blurts alive filling the whole IMAX screen, the sound goes away, and for a couple of seconds you can convince yourself that this is what it would have looked and sounded like.

I do want to make it clear that I think Venom is not a good movie, but I also want to make it clear that I had the time of my life watching it. I think in a couple of years Venom could be the type of movie that sells out midnight showings as people come up to the screen and act out their favorite parts.

What Bradley Cooper has done here as an actor and director is truly remarkable.

Roma is a special movie that needs that all-encompassing experience. Alfonso Cuarón has made yet another movie that will transport you to another time and place. You will feel like you’re living it.

The Sisters Brothers is a much more introspective movie than it leads on to be, but isn’t that surprising when you factor in that it’s directed by Jacques Audiard, making his first film in English.

The Spy Who Dumped Me does an effective job of putting these two outsiders into the world of a violent action movie, but then the plot of the action movie has some truly head-scratching scenes. But, whatever. This is an August movie and Kunis and McKinnon are funny and that’s what you’re paying to see.

Simply put, Mission: Impossible – Fallout is the best action movie you will see this year. You’ll probably leave the theater overcome with an urge to go jumping from building to building.

The biggest problem with Skyscraper is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Ant-Man and the Wasp is a two-hour mental break when a lot of people could need a mental break. If this sounds like I’m being condescending to this movie at all, I promise you I am not. I mean this as a huge compliment. It’s so lighthearted and everyone in the movie is so darn pleasant and they all seem to like each other, it kind of feels like the most fictitious Marvel movie to date.

Sicario: Day of the Soldado is an intense, at times morally ambiguous, and gritty thriller that will leave you wanting more. And, now, Benicio del Toro finally has a franchise of his own.

It feels like a movie that could have easily come out in 2006 as opposed to now, which is what makes Incredibles 2 so fun. It doesn’t belong to a time, so ten years from now both of these installments will just seem like they’ve always just kind of been here. Incredibles 2 will now take its rightful place alongside the first film in the “family canon.”

It’s kind of hard to write about Won’t You Be My Neighbor? as a film. It’s exceptionally well-made, mind you – which shouldn’t be a huge surprise coming from Morgan Neville, who won an Academy Award for directing 20 Feet From Stardom – but beyond being a film, it’s an experience of earnestness we don’t see or hear much anymore, to the point that it’s a bit of a jolt to the system.

This isn’t a situation where Donald Glover shows up and is so good he saves the movie. And don’t get me wrong, Glover is great, but it’s at this point in the movie that everything gets better. This is the part where the movie finally knows what it should have been all along: a rootin’ tootin’ heist movie and not an origin story.

What makes Lisa D’Apolito’s Love, Gilda special is that D’Apolito has a secret weapon: Gilda Radner herself.

So, for basically 90 percent of this movie, I’m sitting there thinking, Okay, this is awesome. Then things changed slightly. And I need to be clear: not to the point it changes how I feel about the movie. I still enjoyed it immensely. But Infinity War did send me out on an unfulfilled note, which, to be fair, is probably by design

The biggest problem is this is a movie that doesn’t quite realize that McEnroe is the star. When LaBeouf is on-screen as McEnroe, the movie works. But the film desperately wants you to love Björn Borg.

Pacific Rim Uprising is a dumb movie that knows it’s a dumb movie and just tries to show you a good time and doesn’t needlessly bog us down with too much character development or exposition because it knows we don’t really care.