The Gray Man

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Gray Goose

In 2003, an unnamed young man (Ryan Gosling), facing a lengthy prison sentence for murder, is approached by the mysterious Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton), who offers to end the man’s sentence then and there if he comes to work for the CIA.  Now, known only as Sierra Six, the man is tasked with the CIA’s most covert operations.  On an assassination mission in Bangkok, Six realizes that his target is a fellow agent (Callan Mulvey), who in his dying moments hands Six a jump drive containing incriminating evidence against the CIA’s smarmy new head, Carmichael (Regé-Jean Page).  Six goes rogue to save himself, and Carmichael enlists psychopathic operative Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans) to put him down.  Outmanned and outgunned, Six’s only allies are the now-retired Fitzroy and his agency colleague Dani Miranda (Ana de Armas).

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Bodies Bodies Bodies

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Late Zoomer

When its title card arrived alongside a grating hyperpop song, I was worried that Bodies Bodies Bodies would be an exercise in empty, insufferable style.  Bodies isn’t without an aesthetic, mind you, but it’s never as punishing as the opening might lead one to believe – its titles simply set the tone for its Gen-Z vibe, which the movie captures with varying degrees of success.

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Beast

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Claws for Alarm

In this age of endless reboots and remakes, it’s heartening to see that a good old-fashioned unoriginal movie can still get made.  To its credit, Beast isn’t a direct rip-off of any particular man-vs.-nature flick, but it has no interest in doing anything new with the genre, and that’s fine by me.

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Prey

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Tribal Warfare

The Predator series has always been willing to play with its formula, tweaking its setup with each new installment to varying degrees of success.  The gimmick this time around is setting the movie in 1719, depicting the alien’s “first hunt on Earth” – this tidbit comes from the trailer, and feels somewhat lazy since it’s never mentioned in the movie.

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Bullet Train

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Trained Killers

I’m a sucker for movies set on modes of transportation.  There’s something about the contained space combined with the inherent sense of momentum that makes for easy, comfortable viewing.  Bullet Train understands the appeal as well, using its propulsive setting to stage a story in the curious subgenre of movies about wacky assassins.

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Nope

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B.E.T.

Nope isn’t a horror movie in the purest sense, but it contains one of the scariest sequences of the year so far – one that tops anything from Get Out in sheer nerve-fraying tension.  The scene is unnecessary and borderline irrelevant to the plot, but it’s such a creepy, compelling horror short unto itself that the movie is better for its inclusion.  There’s something about it that’s symbolic of Nope as a whole: sometimes confused, but gripping in the moment.

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Entrapment (1999)

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The Long Connery

Despite its use of the impending millennium as a plot point, Entrapment’s filmmaking sensibility feels much older.  The foundations on which it is built – the chemistry of its stars, the emphasis on glamor, its escapist sense of adventure – all feel sadly old-fashioned in the current filmmaking landscape.  Though it certainly brings specific movies to mind, Mission: Impossible and the Pierce Brosnan James Bond entries among them, what Entrapment really echoes is more ineffable: an old-Hollywood mood of light entertainment.

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Minions: The Rise of Gru

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And They Were All Yellow

I have a confession to make: until now, I had never seen a Despicable Me movie.  As a millennial, my animation touchstones were Toy Story and Shrek, and at 18 I was too old for the original Despicable Me when it came out.  But sometimes the universe (along with an aggressive marketing campaign) gives you a sign.  I couldn’t stop watching the original #gentleminons video on social media, and for the past month three yellow faces have stared at me from a poster at my subway stop.  When Minions: The Rise of Gru was the most convenient option at the theater, the time had come to stop resisting and succumb to the meme fever.

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Kiss the Girls (1997)

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Lock Up Your Daughters

From the moment its opening credits start to roll, an oh-so-’90s montage of helpless women accompanied by the voiceover of their captor, Kiss the Girls tells you exactly the kind of movie it is.  Part of its moment’s spate of serial killer thrillers looking to capitalize on the success of The Silence of the Lambs, the movie’s differing story, as well as its preexisting source novel, do (just) enough to prevent it from being a rip-off.    

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Top Gun: Maverick

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High as You Can Go

The original Top Gun is not a great movie, but it is an iconic one.  Despite its several risible elements, it’s outlasted conventionally better films in American pop culture by sheer virtue of being so damn memorable.  It’s a factory of classic movie moments, from the orange-soaked, “Danger Zone”-scored opening to the impromptu bar serenade to, yes, the beach volleyball scene.  That these highlights never add up to a fully-formed movie is beside the point; the fact that Top Gun has managed to spawn a sequel thirty-six years later is proof of its unique staying power.

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