Dora and the Lost City of Gold is superb, and here’s hoping this live-action teenage take on the material is a modest hit, if only because selfishly I want to watch this pint-sized adventurer head out into the wilds to continue her exploring immediately.

By the time Tarantino played fast and loose with history and ramped up his masculine Los Angeles fairy tale to bloodily gruesome new heights, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood had pretty much lost me, and I suddenly realized this was one bit of loopy pulp fiction I could have done without.

“Everyone is also all so funny and so good. They’re all very capable actors and improvisers. It was always surprising. The events happened in the moment and I think that you can feel that. ”
– Marc Maron

“I think so many people going into the movie might feel one way, and feel very strongly that way. By the end of the movie, it’s not that I hope the movie changes their mind, but I hope that it at least puts a question mark there. That they’re saying, maybe I don’t know everything, and maybe that’s not the point.”
– Lulu Wang

The Art of Self-Defense is a strange little comedy I couldn’t have disliked even if I had wanted to try to do so, Stearns’ latest a gleeful bit of martial arts rebellion I’m excited to see again.

The Farewell is one of the best films of 2019. Heck, it might even be one of the best of the entire decade.

“It’s all a cross-section of my brain. It’s like martial arts, comedy, drama, metal; everything that you want in a movie. It’s all personal experience stuff for me. It’s very, very, very loosely based on feelings and experiences and passions of mine. The fact that people have been responding to it the way that they have is somewhat surprising.”
– Riley Stearns

Stuber is a fun little trip into the ridiculous, and while I’m not about to give this cinematic rideshare a five-star rating, it seems to me three out of four should be more than adequate.

Anchored by a superb performance from comedian, author, podcaster and essayist Maron and featuring wonderful supporting works by all three of his primary costars, especially a delightfully anarchic Watkins, Sword of Trust is a fast-paced O. Henry meets Mark Twain meets Tom Wolfe-like absurdist lark that sent me out of the theatre smiling.