The Three Musketeers: Part 2 – Milady
Its cumbersome name notwithstanding, The Three Musketeers: Part 1 – D’Artagnan was a pleasant surprise. Director Martin Bourboulon took the source material seriously, along with its antiquated view of...
View ArticleRevisit: Sexy Beast
Any decent accounting of villains in cinema should include not one but two entries for Jonathan Glazer’s outstanding first feature, Sexy Beast (2001). There’s Don Logan, a tyrannical live wire embodied...
View ArticleEgoist
At first, the new Japanese film Egoist want you to resist any pity you might have for its protagonist. The opening scenes show a handsome, successful man in his thirties with a good job, better fashion...
View ArticleWe Grown Now
Since Barry Jenkins appears to be lost – at least for the time being – in the CGI-heavy landscape of his upcoming live-action Lion King prequel, Mufasa: The Lion King (the script is “wonderful,”...
View ArticleResistance: They Fought Back
It is exceedingly difficult to evaluate Resistance: They Fought Back without considering a couple questions. First, do we really need another pathos-wringing documentary about the Holocaust? Has any...
View ArticleFrom the Vaults of Streaming Hell: Rancho Deluxe
Long identified as the quintessential American genre, the Western has never really disappeared, despite distinct periods of inactivity. During these moments, when the style was briefly out of fashion...
View ArticleOeuvre: Fincher: The Social Network
It’s easy to imagine David Fincher not quite knowing where to go after The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The Fight Club and Se7en director has long reveled in his ability to move from world to...
View ArticleChallengers
Throughout his oeuvre, Luca Guadagnino’s films often focus on love as an all-consuming force. In I Am Love (2009) and Call Me by Your Name (2017), the director explored the emptiness of life without...
View ArticleBoy Kills World
If you’re 15 years old, Boy Kills World might be your favorite movie ever. The nonstop gruesome action, cheeky comedy and vengeance-driven narrative check all the boxes for the type of kickass movie...
View ArticleHumane
When it comes to dystopian science fiction, simplicity can be an asset. Films like Children of Men or even Gattaca can be summarized in an elevator pitch, which gives the creators ample room to explore...
View ArticleRevisit: Play Misty for Me
After nearly two decades in front of the camera, the born-grizzled Clint Eastwood made his first directorial outing with the stalker thriller Play Misty for Me in 1971. The movie is simultaneously an...
View ArticleThe Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed
The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed begins with a typical postcoital scene of a couple laying side by side in bed. Complete with a quirky, long-winded title, the film could be just...
View ArticleTerrestrial Verses
Ali Asgari and Alireza Khatami’s Terrestrial Verses is a compact series of nine vignettes, each depicting one side of a charged interaction between a patron, job candidate or person seeking help from...
View ArticleHoly Hell! Napoleon Dynamite Turns 20
In the aftermath of an independent-film explosion, and in the shadow of the burgeoning artistic influence of idiosyncratic filmmakers like Wes Anderson and Todd Solondz, new young directors found...
View ArticleOeuvre: Fincher: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
When The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was released in theaters in December 2011, it was embraced by critics and audience members alike. David Fincher’s take on the first book in Stieg Larsson’s...
View ArticleThe Fall Guy
Question: what’s the last movie you saw where someone got hit by a car, fell down a hill or got set on fire? Chances are, you can conjure the names of the actors who played the characters in these...
View ArticleNew Life
New Life begins in an intriguing fog of mystery. Why is Jessica Murdock (Hayley Erin), a young woman of seemingly unassuming background, on the run, and why was Elsa Gray (Sonya Walger), a fixer with a...
View ArticleEvil Does Not Exist
After last year’s New York Film Festival screening of Evil Does Not Exist, director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi shared that he still wasn’t sure what the film meant to him. While this may be due to its unique...
View ArticleThe Roundup: Punishment
Even amid a struggling box office, CG-enhanced superheroes and city-wrecking spectacles have been a regular fixture with the cinemas and streaming. And there can be anything-is-possible enjoyment found...
View ArticleUnfrosted
If ever there was someone in love with the smell of their own rectangular, jam-filled farts, it would be Jerry Seinfeld. The billionaire comedian, whose feature directorial debut (yes, really) landed...
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