From the Vaults of Streaming Hell: Monstrosity
Considered a late-career blip in the filmography of a director frequently counted as among the worst ever, the 1987 horror-comedy Monstrosity, now streaming on Amazon Prime, seems a far cry from the...
View ArticlePuzzle
It may seem like a simple play of words to say that Marc Turtletaub’s Puzzle is missing a few pieces, yet it’s undeniably true. Revolving around a woman who re-seizes her purpose in life through a...
View ArticleThe Spy Who Dumped Me
For one scene, director Susanna Fogel (Life Partners) totally nails the buddy comedy at the heart of The Spy Who Dumped Me. As the movie enters its final act and its characters have spent much of their...
View ArticleOeuvre: Brooks: High Anxiety
High Anxiety is Mel Brooks’s most parody-driven feature, the film most reliant not merely on the vibe of other films but specific callbacks to images and plots. A loving tribute to the wrong-man...
View ArticleScotty and the Secret History of Hollywood
It starts out bawdy, but ends on a melancholy note. Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood is the borderline-unbelievable account of a Marine who set himself up as a...
View ArticleNight Comes On
Night Comes On deftly combines the best of mainland European social realist cinema with the gritty edge of female-led indie US filmmaking. It also addresses a lack of representation in these sorts of...
View ArticleRevisit: Angels in America
Tony Kushner’s Angels in America became an instant sensation when it opened on Broadway over 25 years ago. During its original run, the seven-and-a-half-hour play, told in two parts, went on to win...
View ArticleGavagai
A film that does not have any secrets, Gavagai flaunts its intentions, influences and thesis for any viewer to see. Namely, it is a slow-cinema investigation of grief and regret through the prism of...
View ArticleDog Days
Released in a month that is traditionally a dumping ground for late-summer cinematic pabulum, the ensemble dramedy Dog Days is a whistle only dog lovers can hear. Those indisposed to the canine...
View ArticleEuthanizer
Cruel and unusual, Finnish export <em>Euthanizer</em> has a mercifully short runtime. But as the Nordic grim reaper at its center delivers a quick death for suffering animals and metes out...
View ArticleCriminally Underrated: Screamers
Director Christian Duguay’s hard science fiction chiller Screamers is one of the lesser known and least acclaimed films based on a Philip K. Dick work. The 1995 film is also one of the most faithful....
View ArticleOeuvre: Brooks: History of the World, Part I
By 1980, it was becoming apparent that Mel Brooks’s best work was behind him. His legendary run had given way to inconsistent comedies that struggled to maintain their momentum for the length of a...
View ArticleThe Meg
Thanks to a lighthearted tone and some killer special effects. The Meg, based on the 1997 novel by Steve Alten, scrapes out a unique corner in the evil shark horror subgenre A well-cast Jason Statham...
View ArticleBlacKkKlansman
Spike Lee has never made a perfect movie, but that’s kind of the point. Many of his best films mix tonally uneven comedy with uncomfortable truth on race while his worst ones collapse under the weight...
View ArticleThe Miseducation of Cameron Post
Desiree Akhavan’s The Miseducation of Cameron Post, a ‘90s set “conversion therapy” tale, took home the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and it isn’t hard to see why. Conversion...
View ArticleSummer of ’84
Hey, do you like ’80s movies? Because François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell, a directorial team known collectively as RKSS, surely do, and they can prove it. Their latest...
View ArticleHoly Hell: The Wedding Singer Turns 20
In the twenty years since The Wedding Singer’s release, Adam Sandler has made a lot of shitty movies. That’s not to say he hasn’t delivered exemplary work for filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson...
View ArticleCrazy Rich Asians
Allow this Asian critic to suggest that Asian representation—or any representation of an underserved audience, for that matter—does not inherently make a movie any good. Do we want art to unsettle us...
View ArticleMadeline’s Madeline
Josephine Baker’s 2014 one-two punch of Butter on the Latch and Thou Wast Mild and Lovely immediately announced the arrival of a major filmmaking talent, one whose tactile, impressionistic suspense...
View ArticleSkate Kitchen
The recently deceased Warren Miller was one of cinema’s most iconic niche filmmakers. His “ski porn” films were replete with full-action sports sequences that demonstrated immense cinematographic...
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