Rogue Agent
The story being told in Rogue Agent fits the very definition of the phrase “stranger than fiction,” in that one would be hard-pressed to believe its tale of a merciless con artist who posed as a...
View ArticleOeuvre: Scorsese: Italianamerican
The Martin Scorsese documentary Italianamerican came out in 1974, the same year as The Godfather Part II. Both films examine the immigrant experience, specifically through the lens of Italians in the...
View ArticleFall
Among the annals of subgenres and cinematic niches, the single-location survival thriller occupies a tricky space: seemingly simple and budget-friendly – the annual assortment of shark movies can...
View ArticleEmily the Criminal
A young woman takes a double shift out of pity, and her reward is a mysterious phone number. The number leads her toward an opportunity for easy money, the kind that is not so legal and only desperate...
View ArticleGirl Picture
Being a teenager can be a difficult time, especially (I would imagine) for those assigned female at birth. When one bears this in mind, it becomes understandable that teenage girlhood has proven to be...
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Revisit: Ratcatcher
The best movies often become more mysterious over time. This is why many of David Lynch’s films have staying power or why some of the more inscrutable works of the French New Wave still thrill new...
View ArticleInu-Oh
Folklore serves as an open doorway to history where stories are handed down to future generations in order to retain memories of the past. In the animated fantasy Inu-Oh, these tales are central to the...
View ArticleFree Chol Soo Lee
Julie Ha and Eugene Yi’s Free Chol Soo Lee does not reinvent the increasingly bloated tropes of contemporary true-crime documentary filmmaking, which in recent years has often stretched simple cases...
View ArticleHoly Hell! One Hour Photo Turns 20
Music video veteran Mark Romanek’s feature debut One Hour Photo is mostly remembered now for Robin Williams’s conversation-piece performance, but that is only one aspect of a quietly remarkable movie...
View ArticleBeast
What is the baseline for a good creature feature? Not every film can be Jaws or Tremors, and yet they all share some basic scenes or storytelling beats. There are obligatory moments where we understand...
View ArticleOeuvre: Scorsese: Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
Fresh off the phenomenal success of The Exorcist in 1973, Ellen Burstyn was given carte blanche by Warner Bros. for a new project in which to showcase her range as a naturalistic actor. She chose a...
View ArticleSpin Me Round
In Spin Me Round, the opening scenes of routine and repetition for Amber (Alison Brie, who co-wrote with director Jeff Baena) do not remotely hint at the direction in which the film will ultimately go....
View ArticleOrphan: First Kill
Jaume Collet-Serra’s 2009 horror hit Orphan hinged on an 11th-hour twist that can justifiably be called ridiculous: [spoiler alert] the eponymous child (Isabelle Fuhrman) that wreaked havoc on Vera...
View ArticleThe Immaculate Room
Emile Hirsch’s career has never really lived up to the glowing predictions made 18 years ago when he starred in the teen sex comedy The Girl Next Door opposite 24’s Elisha Cuthbert. It looked like it...
View ArticleThe Legend of Molly Johnson
The Legend of Molly Johnson is the first full-feature film from writer, director and star Leah Purcell, an Aboriginal-Australian actor who expands on and reimagines Henry Lawson short story from 1892,...
View ArticleRevisit: xXx: Return of Xander Cage
Way back in the distant year of 2004, a little movie titled Torque released in theaters. In hindsight, it’s clear that the film couldn’t have been more in on its own joke of parodying Fast &...
View ArticleGet Away If You Can
Marine majesty is no match for the storytelling sins of Get Away If You Can, fatal flaws which run the gamut from neglecting Chekhov’s gun to self-indulgent beach-sex scenes between characters played...
View ArticleGlorious
From the subdued unease of Benson & Moorhead’s The Endless to the creature-galore terror of The Void and Color out of Space, Lovecraftian horror has been quietly thriving in recent years. Before...
View ArticleCriminally Underrated: The Nice Guys
No joke is left uncracked in Shane Black’s hilarious and gorgeous crime caper masterpiece, The Nice Guys. The film opened to critical acclaim but box office apathy in the summer of 2016, with a vibe...
View ArticleThree Thousand Years of Longing
Three Thousand Years of Longing lays all of its cards out on the table without reservation. This is a film about captivating narratives that is itself a fetching, fantastical odyssey through the...
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