Dominic Griffin

3 days ago | looper.com | Dominic Griffin

RATING : 6 / 10 Amazing turn from Ana de ArmasIncredible action scenes A dodgy narrative with seams showing from the reshootsAn over-reliance on Keanu Reeves Will the masses flock to a "John Wick" movie without John Wick (Keanu Reeves)? That's been the question on a lot of minds ever since the controversial ending of "John Wick: Chapter 4" permeated through the pop cultural consciousness.

4 days ago | baltimorebeat.com | Dominic Griffin

While it might have been a more potent dramatic exercise as a short film, 2015’s “Naz and Maalik,” the feature directorial debut from documentarian Jay Dockendorf, milks much mileage from its central conceit — that to a nosy FBI agent, two young Muslim men ducking into an empty alleyway to steal a secret kiss look a lot like terrorists. The titular characters, Naz (Kerwin Johnson Jr.) and Maalik (Curtiss Cook Jr.) are initially presented as platonic best friends, just guys being dudes.

2 weeks ago | baltimorebeat.com | Dominic Griffin

By the time you read this, “Sinners,” the new film from “Black Panther” director Ryan Coogler, will have made it through its sixth weekend of release, having crossed the $300 million mark at the global box office. It’s not just a rarity for an R-rated film or one predominantly created by and featuring Black talent, but one based on an original idea and not some piece of pre-existing intellectual property.

1 month ago | baltimorebeat.com | Dominic Griffin

When it was announced that Gene Hackman — one of the greatest American actors the big screen has ever seen — passed away last month, movie lovers sprinted to their watchlists to find films of his to dig into. Boxers get ten-bell salutes. Actors get a sea of their greatest works logged on Letterboxd. Many folks seemed to go for “The Conversation,” Hackman’s 1974 paranoid thriller, or “The Royal Tenenbaums” from 2001, his last truly great role.

1 month ago | looper.com | Dominic Griffin

RATING : 7.5 / 10 Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal are a delight together It's still pulpy and sturdy, but isn’t afraid to let loose Ben Affleck’s performance feels less subtle and more geared for comedy It never really reconciles its internal conflict around the nature of law-breaking Spoilers for the ending of an 8-year-old movie, but when 2016's "The Accountant" came to a close, it did so with a surprising and cathartic fight between two men: Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck), an accountant for a...