Loosely born from co-writer/star Jimmie Fails’ own life experiences, The Last Black Man in San Francisco is at times a broad comedy, at others a searing social commentary, and in many instances a bracingly tragic melodrama

I do hope Toy Story 4 is the last of the series, if only because the bow it puts on Woody’s four-film expedition is tied with such loving perfection I have trouble imagining the filmmakers could ever do better than what they miraculously accomplish here.

These were my selections for my favorite films of 2000-2009 slots 30 thru 21 along with the original blurbs I wrote for each of them in December of 2009. As per the previous entries in this series, these thoughts I had a decade ago happily remain mostly unchanged.

But it’s all haphazardly thrown together and never coherently focused, Jarmusch allowing The Dead Don’t Die to have a disheveled lackadaisical momentum that’s too nondescript to resonate and too messily pieced together for events to emotionally matter.

At almost two full hours, Men in Black: International trudges along with almost no interest in getting to its destination with anything approaching haste.

This latest effort to carry the Shaft name isn’t unwatchable but it equally isn’t worthy of a look, either, all of which makes shutting my mouth about its various missteps and shortcomings impossible to do.

These were my selections for my favorite films of 2000-2009 slots 40 thru 31 along with the original blurbs I wrote for each of them in December of 2009. Happy to say, these thoughts I had a decade ago remain mostly unchanged.

Like the character she portrays rules her evening talk show, Thompson towers over this movie with a stunning magnificence that’s extraordinary, and when I watch Late Night again in the future I will do so entirely because of her.

It’s moderately exasperating how things eventually play themselves out, and while I appreciate the risks Kinberg and his team are taking with Dark Phoenix, and while I was rooting for the film’s success even when I could see it falling annoying off the rails, this climactic journey of the X-Men just didn’t do it for me.