Film critic for Salt Lake City Weekly since 2000.
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Secret Headquarters 2022
High-concept comedies have been using a foundation of “what really matters” parent-child relationships for more than a generation, so it’s kind of annoying when one can’t even get the basic structure right. In this variation, everyday guy Jack (Owen Wilson) discovers alien power source that transforms him into the world-protecting superhero The Guard. A decade later, The Guard’s responsibilities have led to an estrangement from his son Charlie (Walker Scobell)—until Charlie and his middle-school friends discover The Guard’s lair beneath…
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The Lion King 2019
What if this Lion King had come first? It’s an interesting thought experiment, sort of a second-cousin to the idea that drives the current theatrical feature Yesterday: What if we woke up in a world where Disney had never released a hand-drawn animated film called The Lion King in 1994, and this story were appearing now for the first time, in the age of photorealistic CGI recreations of real-world animals? If there’s anything wrong with it—and by extension, with Disney’s…
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Phineas and Ferb: The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension 2011
How was it not insanely over-talked-about that Marvel's The Avengers had pretty much the identical climax as a Disney Channel movie?