Criminally Underrated: A Low Down Dirty Shame
Within the larger Wayans Family dynasty, multi-hyphenate Keenen Ivory Wayans has had an interesting career. He created a revolutionary sketch comedy show (“In Living Color”) and helped birth two of the...
View ArticleJane
Jane is a celebratory film of a person who is certainly deserving of being celebrated: the acclaimed primatologist and tireless champion of science, environmentalism and women’s rights, Jane Goodall....
View ArticleSuburbicon
George Clooney’s longstanding relationship with the Coen brothers has produced some of the actors’ finest work, from his anchoring lead in O Brother, Where Art Thou? to the Cary Grant-warping screwball...
View ArticleOeuvre: Demme: Neil Young: Heart of Gold
em>Neil Young: Heart of Gold opens with images of a renovated Nashville, one filled equally with contemporary tourist traps and the faded façades of classic buildings. Riding in various cars to a...
View ArticleThe Killing of a Sacred Deer
Sexually forward, grossly violent, highly inappropriate and considerably discomforting, there may be no other film quite like The Killing of a Sacred Deer, even in director Yorgos Lanthimos’ eclectic...
View ArticleNovitiate
The lives of nuns fall into two camps in cinema: the story of pious and devoted women, or pure exploitative fodder. Director Maggie Betts’ Novitiate eschews both stereotypes in favor of focusing on the...
View ArticleThe Square
Early in Ruben Östlund’s The Square, a grand equestrian statue is removed from its stately perch, atop a pedestal at the center of an expansive Stockholm plaza. In a short scene reminiscent of a Roy...
View ArticleFélicité
Félicité is two films featuring the same characters, smashed together arbitrarily into a single film. The first half is a social drama about life in a war-torn, underdeveloped country, while the second...
View ArticleBill Nye: Science Guy
Watching the new documentary Bill Nye: Science Guy, directed by Jason Sussberg and David Alvarado, conjured thoughts of the original “Star Trek” series, but not due to obvious correlations between...
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Revisit: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
Some films are inexplicably overlooked in their time. Others offer numerous reasons why crowds should not have embraced them with open arms. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is an example of the latter....
View ArticleActs of Vengeance
Thanks to the success of Taken, every male movie star over the age of 50 is destined to make at least one action vehicle fueled by revenge and masculine surety. In Acts of Vengeance, it’s Antonio...
View Article1945
1945 is a perfect example of a small-scale arthouse film that manages to tell a story that is simultaneously contained and particular on one hand and broad and universal on the other. It does this...
View ArticleJoan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold
Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold is a hollow and superficial biography of the writer, which is a shame, because Didion is an undeniably enthralling character who has lived a life worthy of deeper...
View ArticleFrom the Vaults of Streaming Hell: Residue
There are few experiences stranger than firing up a garbage looking B-movie on a streaming service expecting cinematic schadenfreude only to discover an ambitious gem that doesn’t quite stick the...
View ArticleMost Beautiful Island
Add Most Beautiful Island’s writer-director-producer-star Ana Asensio to every list of “stars to watch.” While her performance is strong, purposefully making an important point about her own good...
View ArticleOeuvre: Demme: Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains
The prologue of Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains follows the 39th President of the United States as he whiles away his time in his small hometown of Plains, Georgia. Watching him interact with people...
View ArticleThor: Ragnarok
The first Thor is an underrated fish-out-of-water tale masquerading as a superhero origin story while the second, Thor: The Dark World, is a compromised mess. But the latest in the series goes...
View ArticleMy Friend Dahmer
We like to think of serial killers, especially those who commit atrocities for perverse sexual pleasure, as less than human. There’s a certain reciprocity in that: murderous psychopaths, who view other...
View ArticleLady Bird
Lady Bird has the specificity required of any truly universal youth movies, a personalized, keenly observant eye that draws broader meaning from intimate detail. The title refers to the name that...
View ArticlePrincess Cyd
Despite its few attempts to flirt with suspense and to infuse its story with tension, Princess Cyd achieves what is seemingly impossible in contemporary LGBT film: it is a portrait of discovery and...
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