The Vault
The past decade has not been lacking in cinematic heists. On the big screen, films like Logan Lucky, American Animals, Widows and The Thieves deliver wildly disparate capers, while the crews of “Money...
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Oeuvre: Fellini: Variety Lights
Eight decades on, ‘40s Italian cinema is now largely remembered through a neo-realist lens, prioritizing the scrappy, groundbreaking work of filmmakers intent on casting a creative eye to their...
View ArticleTina
A superstar can be made. Hard, focused, smart work, dedication and a little bit of luck can turn any budding talent into a superstar. But an icon cannot be made. Icons are created, as though a magical...
View ArticleSay Your Prayers
A filmmaking formula that often works—but just as often falls totally flat—is to mash-up elements from previous, successful films. Perhaps this is what Say Your Prayers is going for, mixing the idea of...
View ArticleThe Unholy
The thinnest of supernatural motivations unleashes a hokey digital creation masquerading as a terrible cursed being in The Unholy, a tonally confused and utterly generic light-and-sound show that...
View ArticleAssault on VA-33
One does not have to perform a lot of mental gymnastics to figure out which classic single-location thrillers are receiving the homage treatment in Assault on VA-33. The most obvious one is right there...
View ArticleRevisit: Bubba Ho-Tep
Nearly a decade after punctuating victory over droves of Deadites in the Army of Darkness with the memorable line “Hail to the king, baby,” Bruce Campbell went on to portray the King duking it out with...
View ArticleSpace Dogs: Tropical Adventure
On August 19, 1960, the Soviets launched the satellite Sputnik 5, the first successful attempt to send animals into space and bring them back alive. Among the passengers on that historic journey were a...
View ArticleShiva Baby
For those of us who find family functions stressful, Shiva Baby exists to let us know that we’re not alone. For those of us who are Jewish and find family functions stressful, Shiva Baby is a knowingly...
View ArticleHoly Hell! Bridget Jones’s Diary Turns 20
It goes without saying that, a quarter of a century since Helen Fielding’s novel was published and two decades since Renée Zellweger’s first Oscar nomination, that Bridget Jones and her diary are still...
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Oeuvre: Fellini: The White Sheik
For his first solo effort in the director’s chair, Federico Fellini delivered a satirical comedy in 1952, The White Sheik, spotlighting a number of elements that would come to be identified as...
View ArticleVoyagers
In the near future of Voyagers, the climate crisis has reached such dangerous velocity that a plan develops to search the stars for a habitable planet. The journey, though, will be long, and the fear...
View ArticleHeld
Few film genres are as concerned with judgment of their (frequently female) characters’ pasts and/or current sexual transgressions as horror. Whether it’s Michael Myers stabbing babysitters to death...
View ArticleMoffie
Less than 10 minutes into Moffie, we get our first glimpse of the bigotry that will run like a blood-pulsing vein through the rest of the film. It’s 1981 South Africa, and an enormous group of young...
View ArticleThe Tunnel
The Tunnel begins with something of a startling fact for those who might be unaware of Norwegian safety measures when it comes to travel through tunnels: It is up to the individual to save one’s own...
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Rediscover: The Comfort of Strangers
The Comfort of Strangers is a fascinating disaster. The 1990 film certainly had the pedigree of a classic. An acclaimed director (Paul Schrader) working a screenplay written by a vaunted playwright...
View ArticleMy True Fairytale
We don’t get to choose when loved ones die, but we do get to choose what we do afterwards. For D. Mitry, the writer-director of My True Fairytale, the sudden shock of losing his daughter in a car crash...
View ArticleFrom the Vaults of Streaming Hell: Lucifer
In 2016 I attended an old friend’s wedding outside of Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of India’s Kerala state, located at the southern tip of the subcontinental peninsula. Verdant, lively and...
View ArticleSlalom
The biggest problem with Slalom is convincing people to watch it. This feature directorial debut boasts a young lead, difficult subject matter and a slight sense of familiarity. But if a well-trod...
View ArticleFor the Sake of Vicious
Fans of masked mayhem have been well served in recent years with an influx of films like The Purge series, You’re Next, The Furies and more. With For the Sake of Vicious, directors Reese Eveneshen and...
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