Oeuvre: Demme: The Agronomist
Jonathan Demme fell in love with Haiti through art. His recounting of the story sounds almost like a pitch for the type of movie that would garner cries of cultural appropriation from the...
View ArticleThe Foreigner
Jackie Chan has made an illustrious career from portraying varying shades of the same on-screen persona. His Chaplin-esque everyman has been beloved through a number of films, all anchored by Chan’s...
View ArticleThe Florida Project
Every once in a while, it’s important to ask ourselves why we go to the movies. They open our hearts and empty our wallets, but what are they really for? Roger Ebert famously called them “a giant...
View Article78/52
Although it might only appeal to a specific kind of audience, the documentary 78/52 offers a commanding and deeply thoughtful experience in spite of its narrow premise. The film takes a deep dive into...
View ArticleProfessor Marston and the Wonder Women
We meet Professor Bill Marston (Luke Evans) in the late 1940s as he defends his lucrative creation, Wonder Woman, from a moral code investigation into the comic book’s lurid subtext. Set against stark,...
View ArticleUna
Film adaptations of works made for the stage pose many obstacles, not least of which is how to turn a one-set play into a movie that stays true to its source while adeptly expanding and enriching it....
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Revisit: Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
Great movies can immerse us in another human being’s life, often taking us on a thrilling tour of a particularly eventful existence. The genius of Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles,...
View ArticleTom of Finland
There is a scene towards the end of Dome Karukoski’s Tom of Finland that finds the titular Tom arriving in California and being immediately whisked away to a party at a secluded house. The surprised...
View ArticleHuman Flow
A compassionate and artful exploration of the current global refugee crisis, Human Flow takes viewers into the camps, boats and footpaths comprising the migrant experience. The charismatic and...
View ArticleHoly Hell! Grosse Pointe Blank Turns 20
Facebook killed the high school reunion, or at least that’s what the hundreds of online think pieces on the subject will tell you. But in the early days of the internet, high school reunions still...
View ArticleOeuvre: Demme: The Manchurian Candidate
With this year’s news cycle and the ongoing probe over Russia’s interference in our presidential election, a film like the original 1962 adaptation of Richard Condon’s novel The Manchurian Candidate...
View ArticleOnly the Brave
Firefighters are heroes, of that there’s no doubt, and Hollywood’s attempted to showcase their bravery in film for years. Joseph Kosinski’s Only the Brave blends the real-life story of the Granite...
View ArticleThe Snowman
Perhaps The Snowman had too much going for it and simply buckled under the weight of its esteemed cast and crew. Based on a novel by successful Norwegian author Jo Nesbø, The Snowman was executive...
View ArticleWheelman
The compact setting of Wheelman is established in the first shot, a dark, murky image revealed to be from a camera set in the backseat of a car as a man turns on the lights of a garage, illuminating...
View ArticleLeatherface
Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) endures as one of the all-time greatest horror films in part because of its antagonists’ inexplicable origins. That a family of sadistic cannibals and...
View ArticleJungle
How smart does it sound to follow a random Austrian you met in the streets of a rural Bolivian town deep into the jungle, looking for gold and secret native tribes? How weird is it to then start...
View ArticleRediscover: Rolling Thunder
It would be easy to disregard John Flynn’s 1977 revenge thriller Rolling Thunder as another piece of exploitation trash. The film sits squarely on the fringe of mainstream American cinema, riding the...
View ArticleWonderstruck
The films of Todd Haynes revel in surfaces but thrive in the margins. In his work, aesthetics assume emotions like fear, desire, longing and hope, and the characters strive to locate meaning in the...
View ArticleThe Work
The Work is an emotionally-powerful non-narrative documentary that puts the viewer in the position of an ethnographic researcher acting as a participant-observer. The film waffles in tone, but with...
View ArticleDealt
A fascinating but ultimately disappointing documentary from filmmaker Luke Korem, Dealt profiles Richard Turner, who can do things with playing cards that have to be seen to be believed. Every waking...
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