Amazeballs

I went into “The Six Triple Eight” with the hungry anticipation of someone starved for history not just dusted off, but spun into living, breathing cinema. I wanted to see whether Tyler Perry—a director more haunted by melodrama than most soap operas—could swing the emotional sledgehammer of the 6888th’s story without demolishing its nuanced bones. Uplift and disappointment wound themselves together in ways I hadn’t quite bargained on. This is a film that, like the letters our heroines deliver, manages to arrive at its destination—but the journey is messier than the postmark might suggest.

How often does a film promise fun, suspense, and genuine romance, and—miracle of miracles—actually deliver all three? “Hit Man” is the kind of briskly entertaining, tonally slippery, deeply pleasurable movie experience that leaves you with a big, silly grin in the dark, and a faint suspicion you might’ve just been lovingly cheated. And isn’t that the magic of movies? Richard Linklater, whose work is so often preoccupied with talky, meandering souls lost somewhere between philosophy and the parking lot, here lays down a genre bender that barrels through romantic comedy, crime caper, and existential disguise, and—against all odds—makes it look almost too easy.

Let’s admit it: the decade is positively lousy with thrillers promising you the world—exotic cities full of neon menace, chase scenes that squeal across your eardrums, a hero whose jaw is clenched so tight you’re dying for a punchline. I came to “Weekend in Taipei” burdened with the memory of a hundred similar action diversions, armor already up, braced for kinetic tourism and the odd (perhaps unintentional) laugh. And what do you know? George Huang’s high-velocity tryst with Luc Besson not only left my armor in the dust—it made me care, and worse, it made me happy.

Some filmmakers wield violence like a cartoon mallet, and some, like Timo Tjahjanto, turn it into a secret language—bloody, ballistic, yet weirdly lyrical. “The Shadow Strays” arrives on a cloud of anticipation and squalls of pre-release hype. Netflix, October 17, 2024: there I was—heart racing, jaw...

You know the apocryphal story about critics who walk into an action movie wishing for a glimmer of difference—a splash of personality amid the prefab booms and glowering hostage negotiators? “Carry-On” waltzed onto my screen promising nothing new except a Christmastime setting and a Netflix logo, and about fifteen minutes in, I realized my cynicism had been mugged. Here is a film that doesn’t just meet the genre’s half-hearted handshake; it throws its arms around every cliché in the terminal, spins them twice, then has the nerve to wink.

By about the third swerve into ethical ambiguity in “Juror #2,” I realized I wasn’t in the courtroom drama Clint Eastwood seemed, at first, so eager to sell me. No, this isn’t just another movie about verdicts and closing arguments. Eastwood, that leathery cinematic preacher of the American conscience, is up to something more squirm-inducing than mere legal theatrics. The film comes at you with white-knuckle dilemmas—shouldering you off your seat and into your own muddled sense of right and wrong. You may arrive expecting “12 Angry Men” by way of the Turner Classic Movies channel, but you’ll leave with your moral reflexes tested and, just possibly, thoroughly rattled.