Rediscover: Blood and Black Lace
Mario Bava’s bonkers 1964 slasher film Blood and Black Lace is one of the most influential horror films of all time and one of the very first of the stylish, popular Italian horror giallo subgenre. Yet...
View ArticlePenguin Highway
Based on the science fiction novel by Tomihiko Morimi that was subsequently adapted into a manga, the animated fantasy Penguin Highway is for the most part a delightful coming-of-age story. But...
View ArticleHer Smell
“I flirt with death,” are the first words sung by Becky Something (Elizabeth Moss) in Alex Ross Perry’s phenomenal Her Smell, a scorching psychological study that probes just how accurately Becky lives...
View ArticleStockholm
“Absurd but true” is the way Stockholm characterizes its own story—and sure enough, in a film about the 1973 Norrmalmstorg robbery that inspired the term “Stockholm syndrome,” it’s hard to imagine a...
View ArticleA Dark Place
A basic principle that any dedicated film viewer knows: a dead body is a perfectly good foundation for a film. Even the suggestion of a murder is enough to keep an audience entertained for 90 minutes...
View ArticleHoly Hell! Toy Story 2 Turns 20
The Empire Strikes Back. The Godfather: Part II. Terminator 2: Judgment Day. There are certain films that always come to mind when cinephiles discuss the greatest sequels of all time, but there’s an...
View ArticleOeuvre: Carpenter: Body Bags
Horror anthologies can be a mixed bag, but it’s a testament to John Carpenter’s gifts as a filmmaker that 1993’s Body Bags, his first foray into the format, is such a good time in spite of its...
View ArticleTeen Spirit
Splitting the difference between the schmaltz of last year’s A Star is Born and the arthouse aesthetic of Vox Lux, Max Minghella’s directorial debut Teen Spirit finds its place in the recent spate of...
View ArticleLittle Woods
Billed as a modern Western, Little Woods features outlaws who break bad for good reasons. Writer-director Nia DaCosta’s debut picture presents two determined sisters persevering in the face of the many...
View ArticlePeterloo
In this time of ascendant authoritarianism, director Mike Leigh undoubtedly wanted to make a film that would remind audiences of the cost too many have paid in the fight for democracy. Peterloo, an...
View ArticleRevisit: Jumanji
There was a time when CGI in movies was still a novelty. In mid-90s, around the time of talking toys and roaming dinosaurs, we were collectively unaware of just how pervasive the technology would...
View ArticleHail Satan?
The subject of the latest feature by documentarian Penny Lane (The Pain of Others and Nuts!) is an organization whose seven founding tenets argue for compassion, empathy, reason, secularism,...
View ArticleRafiki
Wanuri Kahiu’s Rafiki opens with a montage of Nairobi life that illustrates the vibrancy of life in the city. Citizens walk around in colorful clothes that blend traditional and modern dress as hip-hop...
View ArticleBe Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché
The earliest filmmakers were not simply producing works of cinema, but also crafting, from scratch, an entire language through which the cinema could make meaning. The fundamentals of cinematic...
View ArticleFrom the Vaults of Streaming Hell: Invasion U.S.A.
American cinema has never had any shortage of war movies, which points to an inherent national belligerence while also providing a fascinating lens through which to view different historical periods....
View ArticleOeuvre: Carpenter: In the Mouth of Madness
Bodily possession ripples through John Carpenter’s self-described Apocalypse Trilogy. With 1982’s The Thing, the sinister force is extraterrestrial: a tentacled, shapeshifting alien taking full...
View ArticleAvengers: Endgame
Avengers: Endgame’s biggest strength is its absolute imperviousness to useful criticism. Being the 22nd film in an obscenely profitable franchise beloved by bean counters and consumers alike, it is, as...
View ArticleBody at Brighton Rock
Don’t be fooled by the bright music and fun ‘80s vibe of Body at Brighton Rock. The new film from writer-director Roxanne Benjamin only wants you to think it’s a light-hearted romp at summer camp. In...
View ArticleCarmine Street Guitars
With Carmine Street Guitars, director Ron Mann and writer Len Blum craft an ode to the fading legend of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. This was the place where a host of artists as eclectic as Dylan,...
View ArticleI Trapped the Devil
Writer-director Josh Lobo makes a sturdy if painfully slow and overly mysterious debut with the slow-burn horror feature I Trapped the Devil. Its strongest asset is its set-up: Matt (AJ Bowen) and his...
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