Joseph Beyer | Author
Film Review: Priscilla
Nov. 25, 2023
While you will certainly be mesmerized by the haunting lead performance from newcomer Cailee Spaeny—and be impressed as always by the sophisticated storytelling of director Sofia Coppola—you may also find yourself wondering at the end of Priscilla if you missed someth...
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Film Review: Taylor Swift - The Eras Tour
Nov. 11, 2023
If any artist of our time symbolizes a quest for self-control and dominion of her own career, it’s Taylor Swift. She’s not only talented and smart—she doesn’t get pushed around. Having taken on music streamer Spotify and concert service Ticketmaster, now she’...
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Film Review: American Graffiti - 50 Year Anniversary
Sept. 2, 2023
The cinema event that caught my eye this month was the 50-year anniversary edition of the classic coming-of-age comedy American Graffiti, #62 on the American Film Institute’s Top 100 list of U.S. movies everyone should see. The film that launched George Lucas as a bold new ...
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Film Review: The Deepest Breath
Aug. 19, 2023
While the new epic documentary The Deepest Breath is definitely not for the faint of heart, those able to endure the onscreen tension of near death experiences will learn a great deal about living life to its fullest.
You may even experience, as I did, the full emotional ...
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Film Review: Barbenheimer
Aug. 5, 2023
Unless you’ve been vacationing disconnected from all media, you might already be over the endless #Barbenheimer memes, cos-posts, and “have you seen it yet!?” hoopla. But I sincerely hope not.
That’s because taken together or separately, the new films B...
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July 22, 2023 Should you choose to accept the mission, before you rush out to see the seventh installment of Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible franchise, you’ll need to clear your schedule for the 2 hour and 43 minute film (and more in 2024 if you’d like to see the second part...
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July 8, 2023 While the conventions of a play within a play or a film within a film are well known and explored, Wes Anderson’s delightful desert romp Asteroid City is neither, but instead, something new. A film within a play? A Greek tragedy within a government amusement park? An allego...
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June 24, 2023 Not many people get to experience the God-like feeling of creating your own universe (or multiverse, as it became), but that’s exactly what happened to young Stanley Martin Lieber when he unexpectedly found himself running a comic book empire at the age of 17. The whole true...
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June 10, 2023 From the first visually-hypnotizing frames and pulsing tones of the opening overture, the epic follow-up Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse had me spellbound. In fact, it may have made me believe again there is a reason to watch a movie on the largest screen possible. Th...
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May 27, 2023 The idea that you can become bolder, more creative, and more daring as you enter your last phase of life may seem counterintuitive, but 72-year-old environmental advocate Kristine “Kris” Tompkins shows us it’s possible in the new documentary Wild Life, a portrai...
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May 13, 2023 As another Earth Day has recently come and gone—with our only known inhabitable world in an even worse climate crisis than in the 1970s when the environmental holiday began—this critic found himself drawn to a flinty new independent film with a title as straightforward as the ...
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April 29, 2023 In the money-for-nothing world of the 1980s where Nike couldn’t give their kicks away for free, the proposition of throwing all their corporate soles into a single basket with a single basketball endorsement sounded crazy even to rebel Phil Knight, founder of Nike, a then-mocked new...
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April 15, 2023 You may not know it, but we live in a mini pinball mecca here in northern Michigan, with a vibrant underground culture of players and pinheads, tournaments, and cool arcades showcasing the full range of classic to contemporary machines and “action.” So when Scott Pierson (owne...
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April 8, 2023 It was hard to imagine that a boxing film—one of cinema’s most predictable and enduring genres—could still hold surprises for audiences, but that’s exactly what happened in 2015 when a young director Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station and Black PantherRead More >>
Feb. 18, 2023 If you’re tempted to fall for the marketing and take your mom, grandma, or bestie to 80 for Brady thinking that you’ll have a great time, let me try to run interference and encourage you to call an audible for something else. While it’s clear that 80...
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Feb. 4, 2023 In a recent Statista survey about movie-going frequency in the U.S., 41 percent of respondents say they now go to the movie theater “rarely.” So, for the very many Northern Express readers who would love to discover something amazing to watch at home, this critic high...
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Jan. 21, 2023 Why any critic who suffers from both robophobia (hatred of the robotic) and pediophobia (fear of dolls) would be excited about the uncanny valley that makes up the film M3GAN is hard to say, but audiences and I both seem solidly captivated by the latest psycho-mechanical thriller...
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Jan. 7, 2023 Opening on over 12,000 screens in today’s full cinematic array of DCP, IMAX, and IMAX 3D choices and flavors, James Cameron’s sequel Avatar: The Way of Water arrived in December after a 13-year wait. This critic fell for the visual hype and took 3D, which created the ...
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Dec. 24, 2022 From the title alone, it is clear that famed director Steven Spielberg’s highly personal, moving-image memoir, The Fabelmans, is not a biography per se, but a fantasy of a biography. And what the film reveals—up to the very tipping point of trauma but never over it&md...
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Dec. 3, 2022 Revenge may not be a dish best served cold after all, at least if the piping hot temperature of director Mark Mylod’s delightful debut satire, The Menu, has anything to say about it. The organic and certified fresh thriller offers a full palette of themes, including...
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Film Review: Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Film Review: Asteroid City
Film Review: Stan Lee
Film Review: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Film Review: Wild Life
Film Review: How to Blow Up a Pipeline
Film Review: Air
Film Review: Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game
Film Review: Creed III
Film Review: 80 for Brady
Film Review: Wildcat
Film Review: M3GAN
Film Review: Avatar: The Way of Water
Film Review: The Fabelmans
Film Review: The Menu