Queen of Black Magic is a brutal, go-for-break bit of exciting horror filmmaking. Kimo Stamboel doesn’t have the same profile as Timo Tjahjanto, his filmmaking…
John and the Hole Tapped by Cannes for its theoretical 2020 slate, John and the Hole carried a bit more intrigue than most films…
Dara of Jasenovac borders of propaganda, more concerned with stoking ongoing political turmoil than honoring the tragedy at its core. Dara of Jasenovac, Serbia’s official…
The Sparks Brothers For most of their fans and listeners, a first encounter with Sparks did not result in the assumption that the duo…
Episode Description: This week, we conclude our discussion on the 2020 summer movie season by taking on a film we still can’t believe got…
CODA The title of Siân Heder’s sophomore feature is twofold: an acronym for the “child of deaf adults,” and the concluding passage or movement…
Beginning emerges from the influence of obvious formal antecedents to become a stirring, singular work from a new cinematic worth following. On its surface, Dea…
Penguin Bloom tries to expand itself a bit from template filmmaking, but mostly still trades in familiar disability narrative tropes and obvious metaphors. Regrettably,…
Saint Maud is another A24 exercise in elevated, modulated horror but is fairly absent of anything beyond empty, artful pretense. It’s been a long journey…
Malcolm and Marie is an affecting meditation on the private life of relationships and the closed-door conflicts that arise in the absence of an…
The Night hints at building nuance into its familiar template, but ultimately jumbles familiar genre tropes to no discernible end. It’s never a good look…
Liborio’s initial enigmas ultimately give way to something tidier and less pleasantly challenging. Olivorio Mateo, a farmer-turned-prophet whose providential oversight and teachings later influenced…
True Mothers bears Kawase’s familiar textures and ambiance but is hampered by a few too many banal plot beats. Adapted from a 2015 bestseller by…
The Little Things is a stylistically bankrupt, psychologically facile yawn of a movie. Largely forgotten in all the talk these days about how modest studio…
Kicking the Canon has underwent a bit of makeover and invited some friends to the party. With a decade having elapsed since the aughts, the…
Palmer has noble intentions and a winning performance from Timberlake, but it’s thematically undercooked and tonally jarring. Apple TV+’s Palmer, the latest film from actor/director…
Just Don’t Think I’ll Scream isn’t the exercise in solipsism or self-serving appropriative art its premise threatens, but its overall effect is one of cautious…
In his 1978 book Orientalism, historian and cultural critic Edward Said writes: “Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is…