Revisit: Amy
“If I could give it all back just to walk down the street with no hassle, I would,” Amy Winehouse says to her bodyguard, Andrew Morris, late into the 2015 documentary, Amy. Many of us have heard the...
View ArticleSlow
Before the romance starts in Slow, the new romantic drama from Lithuanian, writer/director Marija Kavtaradzė creates a genuine sense of credibility. Her two leads stumble into a relationship, speaking...
View ArticleWildcat
Flannery O’Connor is complex. Not just in her literary work for which she is so well known for, but also in her life which, more often than not, was riddled with contradiction. Born and raised in...
View ArticleMars Express
From the facade of the Mechanical Turk’s chess playing prowess to the cinematic terrors of Hal and the T-800, the evolving dynamic between man and machine has always inspired tales of intrigue, fear,...
View ArticleCriminally Overrated: Spy
After trickling into the mainstream since the beginning of cinema, parodies exploded in popularity during the 1970s with postmodern films like Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and Blazing Saddles...
View ArticleGasoline Rainbow
What is it about the American teen road film that draws in so many? Whether it’s a classic like Almost Famous or a low-budget indie such as Lynne Ramsay’s Morvern Callar, the genre’s structure lends...
View ArticleKingdom of the Planet of the Apes
The Planet of the Apes franchise is dependable, a safe bet in Hollywood, because our appetite for post-apocalyptic sci-fi is insatiable. Starting with the original in 1968, these films grapple with...
View ArticleOeuvre: Fincher: Gone Girl
The most important thing about David Fincher is that he is a misanthrope. His dim view of humanity is on display throughout his career, if you know where to look, and he clearly sympathizes with...
View ArticlePoolman
For his directorial debut, Chris Pine has assembled a stellar cast who do the most they can with the material they are given. Poolman also has moments where it is beautifully shot, basked in the...
View ArticleThe Last Stop in Yuma County
If Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre taught us anything, it’s that you never want to find yourself stuck at a gas station that’s waiting for its next fuel delivery, especially if that gas...
View ArticleForce of Nature: The Dry 2
Let’s just get this out of the way. It is extremely funny that a film with the The Dry 2 in its title takes place in a damp forest, one where the threat of a storm is integral to its plot. Robert...
View ArticleAisha
Since the mid-2010s, the news media in the West have breathlessly covered the influx of migrants from the Global South. Many of us have seen the images of packed ships crossing the Mediterranean and...
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Rediscover: Eric Rohmer’s Tales of Four Seasons: A Tale of Springtime
Eric Rohmer (1910-2010) often worked in cycles. The last of the French New Wave directors to gain notoriety, his Six Moral Tales series cemented his reputation alongside Jean-Luc Godard and François...
View ArticleA Prince
There’s a scene in Glenn Danzig’s horror anthology film, Verotika, that is burned into every viewer’s mind: during a spicy sexual encounter, the female character Dajette is suddenly revealed to have...
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Rediscover: Eric Rohmer’s Tales of Four Seasons: A Tale of Winter
It is crucial that A Tale of Winter begins with a prologue set during summer. The joy of summertime, warm and languid, is also what can make seasonal affective disorder so crippling. In fact, Rohmer’s...
View ArticleJuly Rhapsody
Near the hour point of Ann Hui’s devastating drama July Rhapsody, we see high school teacher Lam (Jacky Cheung) taking an elevator up to his apartment. The point of view shifts for a moment to the...
View ArticleOeuvre: Fincher: Mank
David Fincher’s Mank (2020) is, in many ways, not a movie for the average film watcher. It’s not because it’s too gruesome or disturbing, at least not compared to some of his other work like Fight Club...
View ArticleBack to Black
Though an Academy Award nomination should elevate the feelings surrounding a film, sometimes an undeserved one can harbor resentment. 2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody surely fits this bill with one of the...
View ArticleI Saw the TV Glow
For generations, the suburbs were hotbeds of repressed weirdness where outsiders and non-conformists all shared a single keyhole into a larger world: television. At least, that was how it felt before...
View ArticleBabes
Oh, Babes. Perhaps it’s unfair to judge a film by what it isn’t, but in the case of actress and comedian Pamela Adlon’s feature directorial debut, a collaboration with co-writer and star Ilana Glazer,...
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