Erik at the Movies: Oscar Night Preview

Elvis Before watching this movie, I never really “understood” the appeal of Elvis Presley. He was always just some guy who was big in the 50’s and gave Richard Nixon a gun, but after watching it, I finally get the appeal. The film is a biopic about the life of Elvis, and details his career in music, yet despite the movie being 3 hours long the film feels very abridged. Interestingly, the movi...

The Fabelmans With a brutally honest and heartfelt depiction of his childhood, Steven Spielberg manages to make one of the most touching films of the year. As previously mentioned, the story is about the childhood of Stephen Spielberg and also depicts his parents divorce, yet manages to handle it with such emotional depth that the film almost seems too personal at times. The great performances and dire...

Everything Everywhere All At Once This movie is the definition of too much and yet I still want more. The story is about a family of Chinese immigrants who are trying to pay their taxes when a parallel universe connects the mother and tries to have her assist them in saving the multiverse. Hijinks ensue in one of the craziest films I have ever seen. A great ensemble cast of Michelle Yeoh, Kế Huy...

Top Gun: Maverick I had previously seen the first Top Gun movie and thought it was just ok, so I was pleasantly surprised when this turned out to be as good as it was. The film takes place over 30 years after the death of Goose, and now Maverick is instructing his son, Rooster, and others in order to fly a dangerous combat mission. Interestingly, the cameras used for this movie were originally c...

All Quiet On The Western Front / Im Westen Nichts Neues Very rarely, in history, are there “moral” wars. Ones in which it is truly worth dying and putting down your life for the sake of humanity. One where beyond any political purpose, you are the right thing by fighting the good fight. This is not that exception. This is total war, stripped of its grandiose flourishes and heroic sacrifices a...

Avatar: The Way Of Water After over 13 years, not many people thought that the sequel to Avatar would be able to hold up to the original, and even less thought that it would be anywhere near as successful, yet it managed to be a worthy successor.  The story is an improvement from the last one, and depicts the Sully family moving to the Metkayina clan of Pandora in order to take refuge from the...

The Banshees Of Inisherin A pleasant but aggressively Irish movie about two friends who end up having a quarrel and fall out. The story is about these two friends living on the small Irish isle of Inisherin during the Irish civil war and the end of their friendship. The acting from Colin Farrel, Brenden Gleason, and Barry Keoghan are all great and help carry the movie. The best character however ...

Women Talking I was pleasantly surprised by this film, as I expected it to be a bland uneventful drag, yet ended up receiving a quick movie that luckily doesn’t overstay its welcome. The story is about women in a religious cult who are talking about their future and how they will deal with the rampant sexual abuse and rape from the male members of their colony. The previously mentioned subject ...

Triangle Of Sadness A high brow parody of the top 1%, Triangle Of Sadness aimed high but failed to really hit the mark. The story takes place on a luxury cruise ship that is about to crash on a deserted island. Its atmosphere in the first half is quite off putting, which helps to set the mood, but the second half is a letdown and stops the movie from being as good as it can be. At least Woody Ha...

Tár Other than Cate Blanchett’s great and nuanced performance, I had an extremely difficult time connecting with the movie. The plot was extremely confusing and expected too much of the viewer to adequately follow it. The pacing was about as fast as molasses, with almost nothing happening for the first 45 minutes but exposition. All of the subtitles used for foreign languages are incredibly small an...