The Dirt (2019) | Jeff Tremaine

March 30, 2019April 19, 2019 ~ Vince Leo

The Dirt is a Netflix biopic featuring re-enactments of some of the wild, raunchy and tragic stories as told by the members of popular 80’s/90’s metal band Motley Crue in their autobiographical book of the same name. Starring Douglas Booth, Machine Gun Kelly, Daniel Webber, and Iwan Rheon. Directed by Jeff Tremaine.

Dragged Across Concrete (2018) | S. Craig Zahler

March 26, 2019April 19, 2019 ~ Vince Leo

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Dragged Across Concrete is writer-director S. Craig Zahler’s further exploration of the seamy underbelly of American society, particularly through the prism of how that experience causes ripple effects that throw even innocent people into the wake of the criminals. Most of the action follows the exploits of two cops in the fictional city of Bulwark, the older burnout Brett Ridgeman (Mel Gibson) and his younger partner Anthony Lurasetti (Vince Vaughn), who get suspended from the force after they are caught on camera going a little too far in roughing up a suspect in the current environment that frowns on the perception of racial profiling. The other major story arc in the film involves Henry Johns, just released from prison, going back to a life of crime in order to provide for his mother (a drug user who has been prostituting herself for needed cash) and disabled younger brother, who has aspirations of becoming a video game developer. The two stories converge when the cops decide they’re going to snatch money from a secretive drug dealer named Vogelmann, while Henry, working for that guy, becomes the wheel-man in a bank heist.

Vice (2018) | Adam McKay

January 27, 2019April 19, 2019 ~ Vince Leo

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Written and directed by Adam McKay, who impressed in his last effort from 2015, The Big Short, Vice is specifically a biopic of sorts about former Vice President of the United States under George W. Bush, Dick Cheney — both of whom were seen as responsible for the policies that brought about the stock market crash covered so well in McKay’s prior film. McKay covers Cheney’s rise from drunken slob, to shaping up by entering Wyoming business and politics, to becoming a power player in the Republican party in Washington (Chief of Staff under President Ford), to his failed ambition to become president, to becoming the CEO of Halliburton. However, some would say that, after a successful bed on the bottom of the ticket for the 2000 and 2004 elections, he found a way, dubbed the Unitary Executive Theory, to become the most powerful nation in the world from the number-two position despite it being seen as a do-nothing office.

Glass (2019) | M. Night Shyamalan

January 21, 2019April 19, 2019 ~ Vince Leo

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Glass serves as a sequel to two films from M. Night Shyamalan, 2000’s Unbreakable and 2018’s Split, the latter of which tied itself to the former with the post-end title stinger. Bruce Willis makes his return as the ‘unbreakable’ security company owner David Dunn, who, along with his adult son (and sole employee) Joseph, is trying to track down a crazy roaming the streets of Philadelphia who is abducting teenage girls. James McAvoy continues his portrayal of Kevin Wendell Crumb, aka The Horde, a conglomerations of split personalities that take over Kevin’s body at various points, including the homicidal brute known as The Beast, who is the one feeding on those girls David is looking for . Samuel L. Jackson also returns from Unbreakable as the titular character, the brittle mastermind self-named Mr. Glass, aka Elijah Price, who has apparently been laying low for some time under heavy sedation. The three end up rounded up and subsequently kept separate chambers within a high-security psychiatric facility led by Sarah Paulson’s Dr. Ellie Staple, whose specialty is in rehabilitating persons who believe they are superheroes. From Split, Anya Taylor-Joy returns as Casey Cooke, who survived her terror-filled first meeting with The Horde while in its persona as The Beast, but who finds herself drawn to help him escape his inner demons.

Leave No Trace (2018) | Debra Granik

January 10, 2019April 19, 2019 ~ Vince Leo

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Ben Foster’s war vet Will, widower father to the young teenage girl with the boy’s name of Tom (Thomasin McKenzie), is suffering from some sort of Post Traumatic Stress from his time in the service, living out in the woods, completely off the grid, roughing it in that public park in Oregon. Director Debra Granik combined these elements with the story of a man who raised his daughter off the grid in their own cabin in Oregon, wanting her to learn from nature and books rather than live her whole life in a world of conformity, though she did have exposure to those elements in her time of custody with her mother, as well as in her teen years, when she went to a high school and became more interested in conforming to society.

BlacKkKlansman (2018) | Spike Lee

December 31, 2018April 19, 2019 ~ Vince Leo

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In this Spike Lee joint, we go back to the 1970s, where we find Ron Stallworth, the first black police detective working for the Colorado Springs Police Department. In one of his first assignments after laboring behind the scenes to test the waters as a file clerk, Ron is hired to go undercover to record a speech being given locally by black activist Kwame Ture (Corey Hawkins), formerly known as Stokely Carmichael, at a nearby college, in which the subject is black empowerment, racist law enforcement, and preparation for the race war they feel will be inevitable. The police thought the speech would incite violence, but Ron saw the speech as just talk in that regard, and inspiring otherwise.

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) | Bryan Singer

November 24, 2018April 19, 2019 ~ Vince Leo

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Bryan Singer directs this tribute biopic on Freddie Mercury and his stint with one of the most influential rock groups from the 1970s and 1980s, Queen. Electrifying performances, lavish stage costumes, and a peek into Freddie’s confusion and acceptance of his sexuality are in the mix of this loose-hanging look at one of the greatest rock-and-roll frontmen.

Bullitt County (2018)

October 27, 2018 ~ Vince Leo

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BULLITT COUNTY is a small-scale dramatic thriller set in the late 1970s, where a bachelor party trip to Kentucky Bourbon country could prove lucrative when the quatrtet of friends decide to head off the beaten path to search for a cache of buried treasure on Bullitt family private property. Written, directed and co-starring David McCracken, the film echoes bits and pieces of ’70s character-driven thrillers mixed with more modern film-making takes from the likes of Tarantino and the Coen Brothers.

Hereditary (2018) – A Podcast Film Review

June 18, 2018 ~ Vince Leo

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First-time feature film director Ari Aster makes a splash in this thoughtful and well-acted blend of family melodrama and supernatural horror. Toni Collette’s performance anchors this tale of a mother trying to cope with the loss of her own manipulative mother, and a couple of teenage kids who seem to be losing their way in the death’s wake.

A Wrinkle in TIme (2018) Disney Movie Review Podcast

March 15, 2018June 1, 2018 ~ Vince Leo

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Ava DuVernay gets her first crack at a big-budget adventure, and the results have been wildly mixed among critics and fans alike. Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling and Chris Pine star in this extravagant romp through space and time for one tween in search of her long-lost father.