Where is Kyra?
As with most famous film cities, the New York of cinema is idealized as a land of opportunity, defined by open avenues and wide thoroughfares, whether these roads lead its strivers and aspirants to...
View ArticleThe Endless
Introducing a UFO death cult in the first act typically requires seeing one go off by the third, but The Endless ends up going more “Twilight Zone” than Heaven’s Gate. Movies about cults often...
View ArticleRevisit: The Friends of Eddie Coyle
Released at precisely the right moment—smack in the middle of the Hollywood revival of the ‘70s, sandwiched between the first two The Godfather films and just before the birth of the modern action...
View ArticleBig Fish & Begonia
In the vein of classic Ghibli films such as Spirited Away and Ponyo, co-directors Xuan Liang and Chun Zhang strive to infuse their mystical Big Fish & Begonia with homages to Chinese legends. The...
View ArticleThe Humanity Bureau
An increasingly pasty-faced, middle-aged actor who will apparently show up for anything drives down the highway with a green screen taking note of the barren post-apocalyptic landscape that passes him...
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Criminally Underrated: Blumhouse Productions
The business side of moviemaking isn’t often discussed too heavily in film criticism, but there are times where it most certainly should be. As appreciative as we can be of a well-made film, we can...
View ArticleOeuvre: Gilliam: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus represents a blessed reprieve in Terry Gilliam’s descent into moribund cruelty and rudderless repetition. It’s especially impressive given that it starts in broadly...
View ArticleBlumhouse’s Truth or Dare
Who needs a conventional slasher film? That’s the question proposed by some of Blumhouse Productions’ most unique efforts, 2015’s Unfriended and 2017’s Happy Death Day. In the former, beautiful young...
View ArticleMarrowbone
Marrowbone is the latest in a relatively recent trend of Spanish horror movies, or at least horror movies directed by people from Spain, that focus more on atmosphere and mood than visceral shocks and...
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Rediscover: Meantime
Like fellow countryman Ken Loach, Mike Leigh has long been the champion for the working class in his films, frequently depicting lives that would be considered too “ordinary” or characters too...
View ArticleZama
Lucrecia Martel’s filmography is one of claustrophobia, of sheltered bourgeois characters gradually suffocating in the myopia they erect around themselves. Zama, set during the period of Spain’s...
View Article10×10
A film titled after the dimensions of a soundproof cell hidden behind a fake wall in a private home sounds like a recipe for claustrophobic chamber horror. One would also reasonably expect most of the...
View ArticleGonjiam: Haunted Asylum
Along with Chernobyl and the Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic, an abandoned psychiatric hospital in Gyeonggi, South Korea was named one of the seven “freakiest places on the planet” in a CNN Travel...
View ArticleFrom the Vaults of Streaming Hell: The Beautiful Ones
Former stuntman-turned-DTV action film director Jesse V. Johnson has shot six feature films all released in the current 24-month cycle. He’s proven himself to be an efficient and effective purveyor of...
View ArticleThe Rider
Striking in both its presentation and its simplicity, writer-director Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is a quietly captivating portrait of the American West. The film, which follows Native American rodeo star...
View ArticleOeuvre: Gilliam: The Zero Theorem
Terry Gilliam’s most recent directorial effort, The Zero Theorem, is in many ways an addition to his Trilogy of Imagination, which began with 1981’s Time Bandits, continued with 1985’s Brazil and...
View ArticleGhost Stories
Hollywood is in the middle of a horror moment. Alongside CGI-filled fireworks-shows-masquerading-as-movies and massive franchise installments, horror films have dominated release schedules for the past...
View ArticleJet Trash
Jet Trash has two distinct ancestral lines in cinematic history. The first is thematic, where it follows in the wake of films such as The Hit and Sexy Beast, and the other is stylistic, with the film...
View ArticleKodachrome
The well-meaning drama Kodachrome parallels a dying analog world with the failing human body. Its characters shoot film and play vinyl records, and the movie was even shot on 35mm stock, deep red hues...
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Revisit: Rome, Open City
Many point to Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy as a birthplace of modern cinema, as it boasts a scene that rivals the Odessa Steps or Buster Keaton hanging from a speeding locomotive as one of cinema’s...
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