As They Made Us leans heavily into flat sitcom tropes, neutering any potential feeling the family drama might have otherwise realized. Family dramedy As They Made…
OK, so things don’t really vanish anymore: even the most limited film release will (most likely, eventually) find its way onto some streaming service or…
The South Korean drama Hot in Day, Cold at Night is nothing if not timely in its portrait of an unnamed, twenty-something couple desperately trying…
Chinese documentary has long been a vibrant and all too underseen area of filmmaking, even before the international recognition of masters like Jia Zhangke and…
Robe of Gems Already an acclaimed editor on films such as Carlos Reygadas’ Silent Light & Post Tenebras Lux and Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja, as well…
Vortex is as viscerally bracing as Noe’s previous efforts, but here also cut through with a new, impressive level of restraint. It’s become somewhat typical…
It’s 1995, halfway through the decade and two years into the centrist liberal Elysian era of pre-blow-job Bill Clinton, a year in which Forrest Gump…
Pompo: the Cinéphile could do with being a bit thornier, but it’s nonetheless a film that understand the power of movies in a unique, appealing way.…
There’s nothing much profound going on in Anaïs in Love, but its languorous, late-summer tenor makes for a lightly pleasant watch. A warm, sandy romance…
7220 skews quite commercial, but a persistent emotional core and littered lyrical Durk-isms make for an appealing record even in this imperfect form. To say that…
Run, Rose, Run is a companion album that works surprisingly well on its own, imperfect but better than a James Patterson collab has any right…
The only thing Better than You proves is that DaBaby and YoungBoy are better at putting out mid-tier music than most. The title of DaBaby…
Lil Durk To say that Lil Durk had a big 2021 would be something of an understatement. In actuality, the year was a pretty momentous…
Skin offers a refinement on Ho99o9’s particular style, but doesn’t move beyond that mode of genre synthesis to anything more substantial. Committed to the bit…
For some time, and even still, the accepted critical narrative regarding Spike Lee’s 25th Hour positioned the film as one of the significant peaks in…
Polar Bear is a pleasing visual document and marks something of a welcome pivot for Disneynature, but still boasts a low ceiling thanks to the…
Charlotte is another anonymous effort on the Holocaust film heap that has now idea what to do with Jewish pain. Éric Warin and Tahir Rana’s animated…
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 doesn’t offer much for either the fetish crowd or kids looking for unencumbered adventure spectacle. Ever since bursting onto the scene in…
Unbearable Weight is the latest high-concept, one-joke movie, but it’s thankfully a funny enough joke to justify the film’s existence. Nicolas Cage is Nicolas Cage —…
The Bad Guys is an energetic crowd-pleaser with some inspired animation, but it’s hampered by lazy storytelling and an overreliance on meta-ness and winking reference. Based…
Stanleyville is a toothless comedy that fails to fill in the considerable gaps in its conceptual framework. Maxwell McCabe-Lokos’ Stanleyville confines itself to a single room,…