Jolt is an ironically-titled dud, its rote thriller stylings utterly unervating. Tanya Wexler’s Jolt is like a fake movie playing on the television in a better, but probably still mediocre movie. It’s a cheap but slick product, nothing but a piece of content used to…
A gangster film from the perspective of a 15-year-old girl, A Chiara, like The Godfather, begins with a party. That the most memorable mafia films often include a party — each film of Coppola’s saga begins with one, and Goodfellas’ wedding reception scene is…
Air Conditioner is a beautiful, thoughtful work of easygoing charm and surprising intellect. As far as cinematic representations of heat go, Ernest Dickerson’s work on Do the Right Thing remains undefeated, with its yellow tint capturing brick buildings and asphalt streets that seem liable to…
At first glance, Aleksey German, Jr.’s House Arrest is a satire aimed squarely at Russian state repression and censorship. David (Merab Ninidze), a University professor, awaits trial under house arrest, accused of embezzling state funds intended for an academic conference. The charges are trumped…
The True History of the Kelly Gang was something of a homecoming for Justin Kurzel after his Hollywood adventure curdled with Assassin’s Creed. With his latest, Nitram, he returns to the more specific roots of his debut Snowtown, making another dubious exploration into real-life…
The final Fear Street entry is something of a mixed bag, thriving in its eponymous past setting but floundering a bit as the series comes to a conclusion. Throughout the first two installments of Leigh Janiak’s Fear Street trilogy, the people of Shadyside have…
If Are You Lonesome Tonight? makes your memory stray to A Brighter Summer Day, that’s intentional. Save for taking their titles from the same Elvis song, the two films have very little in common. That doesn’t stop Wen Shipei from forcing the comparison, repeatedly…
George Romero’s two 1978 releases, Dawn of the Dead and Martin, represent the director at the apex of his career as an artist who had already grown beyond his revolutionary early work but still contained the hunger of a true independent. The two films…
In La Civil’s final shot, Cielo (Arcelia Ramírez) sits on a bench outside her home in Mexico. At the end of a long, fruitless journey to find her kidnapped daughter, she has seemingly become numb to her environment, unbothered by the flies that land…
Fear Street Part 2 improves on Part 1 in nearly every way, a slick slasher of high energy, genre play, and legitimate pathos. The second film in Leigh Janiak’s R.L. Stine-based trilogy, Fear Street Part 2: 1978 picks up right where the first film left off.…
