Zoolander 2
Is nostalgia alone reason enough to go see a belated and unnecessary sequel? Fifteen years have passed since we last saw the “really, really ridiculously good-looking” Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) and...
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Rediscover: The Bridge
World War II has been a fecund milieu for filmmakers, one that has birthed countless movies during the second half of the 20th century and into the current one. As people still try to comprehend the...
View ArticleA War
There are no easy answers in A War There seems to be a misunderstanding about what “documentary style” films really are. Your average over-aspirational American “documentary style” drama filmmaker...
View ArticleAlready Tomorrow in Hong Kong
“I’m developing an algorithm to define the connection between Jewish guys and Asian girls,” quips a classmate to a young Mark Zuckerberg in David Fincher’s The Social Network, riffing on a stereotype...
View ArticleHoly Hell! Bound Turns 20
Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski are among the most ambitious American filmmakers of the last 20 years. The oral history of The Matrix’s production varies somewhat from executive to executive, but...
View ArticleOeuvre: Craven: Scream 3
Wes Craven is most known for fathering the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise, but he personally directed twice as many Scream films, which is about half as many as he should have made if you’ve ever...
View ArticleThe Witch
Watching the 17th century Puritan family at the heart of The Witch tear each other apart, it’s hard not to consider all the technophobic memes your computer illiterate aunts and uncles are likely to...
View ArticleRace
Though it won’t have much of a shelf life, Race is a great movie to see with a large crowd. Even a cinema curmudgeon with rigid standards for movie theatre etiquette like myself, couldn’t help but be...
View ArticleRediscover: The Littlest Hobo
Man’s best friend has been a favorite movie subject since the early years of cinema. From legends like Rin Tin Tin and Lassie to David DeCoteau talking animal joints, put a dog in a movie and some...
View ArticleEmbrace of the Serpent
Beyond a rapid winnowing in size, a place like the Amazon rainforest hasn’t changed much in the last 100 years, retaining an essential wildness that governs its secluded corners far more completely...
View ArticleForsaken
Last year, the Western genre received a shot in the arm from ultraviolent films like The Hateful Eight and Bone Tomahawk. Despite the severity of its title (which perhaps hews too closely to Unforgiven...
View ArticleRolling Papers
On January 1, 2014 recreational marijuana was legalized in Colorado. Anyone who glanced at the news that day would have seen the lines outside dispensaries, the cannabis flags waving and the...
View ArticleFrom the Vaults of Streaming Hell: Phantoms
The sheer number of books Dean Koontz has written is ridiculous. Equally as ridiculous as the film adaptation of Phantoms. The hook of this horror trip is simple enough: the population of a small...
View ArticleOeuvre: Craven: Cursed
It’s tragic when a celebrated filmmaker manages to plumb the absolute depths of rock bottom, but seldom has this inevitable occurrence been as baffling or hypnotic as Cursed, the ill-fated werewolf...
View ArticleEddie the Eagle
Late in Eddie the Eagle, a paint-by-numbers biopic directed by Dexter Fletcher, there’s a passing reference to the Jamaican bobsled team that once inspired Cool Runnings. This wink to the 1993 Disney...
View ArticleTriple 9
Australian director John Hillcoat has established that a world run by the ungovernable is his focus. In his breakthrough, The Proposition (2005), Hillcoat spun an Old West-style story of revenge set in...
View ArticleCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny
The original Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was something of an anomaly upon its release. The film was a success on dual fronts, equally appealing to two different audiences. For action movie fans...
View ArticleRevisit: The People vs. Larry Flynt
“What is more obscene? Sex or war?” The question was posed by Woody Harrelson in The People vs. Larry Flynt and it remains relevant today. After all, we live in an era when search engines can find and...
View ArticleThe Last Man on the Moon
The Apollo 11 moon landing was such a milestone of the 20th century that it’s easy to forget no one has set foot on the lunar surface in well over 40 years. The space race between the United States and...
View ArticleSongs My Brothers Taught Me
The Badlands of South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is a stark landscape of eroded canyons and ravines whose beauty lies in the very bleakness of its terrain. Director Chloé Zhao harnesses the...
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