Jesse Hassenger

The New York City walk-and-talk has become a signature for writer-director Adam Leon over the course of just a couple of movies. Different motivations may animate Leon’s films Gimme The Loot andTramps, but his work still speaks a distinctive language…

Callie (Carrie Coon) doesn’t much look like the daughter of bespectacled, deadpan-voiced, poofy-haired scientist and erstwhile ghostbuster Egon Spengler, brought memorably to life by the late Harold Ramis, whose specter haunts the new movie…

Earlier this year, the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle sued Netflix over the new film Enola Holmes—as well as the author of the kids’ books that serve as its source material—for violating copyright on 10 Sherlock Holmes stories. While many of the most…

Netflix has spent the last year or two establishing itself as a destination for big-name filmmakers with ambitious projects. If Martin Scorsese needs extra millions to invest in de-aging effects for a 210-minute crime epic or the Coen brothers want…

In the wake of dead-end sequels to Machete, Spy Kids, and Sin City, it might seem strange to describe director/writer/jack-of-all-trades Robert Rodriguez as ahead of his time. But during his peak productivity, Rodriguez was taking inspiration from…

It was one common complaint-as-question among many leveled at the Star Wars prequel trilogy: With all the Jedi, Padawans, royalty, and Gungans running around, where was the Han Solo figure—the lovable rogue to cut through the series’ considerable…

Adam Sandler has so many regular and semi-faceless collaborators that it can be virtually impossible to discern their influences and whether they’re positive or negative. Is Tim Herlihy his best screenwriting partner, or just another occasionally…

From its very first moments, The Greatest Showman buzzes with the contradictory impulses fueling a big-budget musical about P.T. Barnum—or maybe fueling any splashy big-budget contemporary musical trying to position itself among hot Broadway…

The gorgeous 1970 Simon & Garfunkel song “The Only Living Boy In New York” has a petty origin story: It was written by Paul Simon about his bitter loneliness when his singing partner Art Garfunkel left him in New York to go shoot a movie in Mexico.…

It’s a humiliating moment, to be sure. Tripp is riding to school with a bunch of other kids when a classmate pulls up alongside the bus driving a sweet, tricked-out truck, attractive young lady at his side, and shoots Tripp a derisive look. The sting…

One of the earliest jokes in Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates is one of the movie’s cleverest. After a brief cold open, the opening credits roll over images of brothers Mike (Adam Devine) and Dave (Zac Efron) Stangle engaging in flashy, over-the-top…

Gemma Arterton may never become a big star in America, but the work of Posy Simmonds is doing its best to make her, at least, an object of fascination. Simmonds wrote the serialized comic strip Tamara Drewe, a riff on Thomas Hardy’s Far From The…

When Lord Charlie Mortdecai (Johnny Depp) introduces himself first and then his twirly, recently grown mustache, the good-taste brigade, always wondering when Depp will quit goofing around, may begin to feel nauseated. Their nausea probably won’t…

Though decades-later movie sequels have become frequent and sometimes surprisingly great, comedy follow-ups remain tough nuts to re-crack. This is especially true when, say, 14 years have elapsed between a phenomenon and the dying gasps of “my wife!”…

Hollywood and Broadway have spent decades locked in a vicious cycle: Blockbusters from both have spent more money on lavish spectacle, which has in turn required enormous ticket sales to justify the investment, leading to bigger budgets to attract a…