Ladyworld
Ladyworld, the new film from filmmaker Amanda Kramer, starts off with a dark thrill; over a minute of black screen accompanied by the sounds of destruction. It’s a jarring start, and effective. The...
View ArticleOtherhood
Cindy Chupack’s Otherhood attempts to explore empty nest syndrome in the millennial era, with children not only out of the house but scattered to the winds and so used to communication via social media...
View ArticleFrom the Vaults of Streaming Hell: Bee Movie
Following the sensational success of the sitcom that bore his name, Jerry Seinfeld hasn’t exactly been aggressive in pursuing new accomplishments. Settling comfortably into the languors of wealth and...
View ArticleOeuvre: Varda: Daguerréotypes
You would think that 1976’s Daguerréotypes, one of Agnès Varda’s best documentaries, would be rather playful, given how realistic her (often playful) narrative features are and that that this film’s...
View ArticleThe Kitchen
Though the film straddles the line between comedy and drama, a curious phenomenon kept happening at this reviewer’s screening of The Kitchen. An adaptation of a little known graphic novel from DC...
View ArticleScary Stories to Tell in the Dark
While any filmmaker with the right budget and a little creative freedom could adapt a beloved book of short horror stories into a watchable film, you know you’re watching one Guillermo Del Toro was...
View ArticleA Score to Settle
With a hot-off-the-presses New York Times Magazine profile and a few genuinely strong recent performances, the stakes are higher for Nicolas Cage than they’ve been in years. From the pyramid-shaped...
View ArticleThe Peanut Butter Falcon
A charming adventure movie that owes a little to Beasts of the Southern Wild and a lot to Huckleberry Finn, The Peanut Butter Falcon largely succeeds because of the chemistry of its two leads, Zack...
View ArticleAfter the Wedding
The 2006 Danish film After the Wedding, directed by Susanne Bier from a script she co-wrote with Anders Thomas Jensen, was a soapy drama filmed through the lens of cinema vérité, its substantial plot...
View ArticleRevisit: The Wicker Man
Most horror film fans know The Wicker Man’s classic, shocking twist by now. And the fact that the film takes place almost entirely during the day has brought it back into the conversation recently...
View ArticleNekrotronic
Most agree that style without substance is a losing formula in the world of movies, but sometimes, style goes a long way. In the case of Kiah Roache-Turner’s Nekrotronic, a charming but ultimately...
View ArticleSocrates
With Socrates, Brazilian-American filmmaker Alexandre Moratto offers an insightful look into the youth culture of Brazil with this grief-inducing drama about a young gay teen’s paternal loss and...
View ArticleHoly Hell! Election Turns 20
I suspect that most of us who’ve seen Alexander Payne’s sophomore film, Election, based on the novel by Tom Perrotta, would agree that Tracy Flick is given the villain edit. Indeed, the movie’s...
View ArticleOeuvre: Varda: One Sings, the Other Doesn’t
One Sings, the Other Doesn’t opens with a montage of silent women, figures in still photographs in various stages of undress, many with children or pregnant, and others standing alone, widowed and...
View ArticleGood Boys
The precocious kid brother of Superbad, Gene Stupnitsky’s Good Boys offers a mixed bag of benign vulgarity, amusing zingers and painfully strained jokes that just don’t land. Produced by Seth Rogen and...
View ArticleWhere’d You Go, Bernadette
There was a time when even Richard Linklater’s misfires stood out as the work of an idiosyncratic talent. Though rarely a formally daring filmmaker, Linklater’s abiding gift for observing and...
View Article47 Meters Down: Uncaged
With the first 47 Meters Down film, writer/director Johannes Roberts created an undersea thriller somewhere between the auteurist pulp of Jaws and the lowest-common-denominator schlock of Sharknado. It...
View ArticleDriven
In unpacking a sensationalist chapter of ‘80s pop culture history, Driven proves a mild curio, but it functions entirely on the back of its talented cast. This is, above all else, a mediocre movie made...
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Revisit: Do the Right Thing
When history comes knocking, Shelton “Spike” Lee will be remembered for many things. He will be Spike the demagogue, the angry young man with loud opinions and an articulacy that demands to be heard....
View ArticleCold Case Hammarskjöld
A deep dive into murky historical waters, Cold Case Hammarskjöld plumbs the place where accepted factual record and conspiracy theories commingle. Ostensibly an exploration into the death of UN...
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