Black Bear is a challenging diptych study of life and art, and the blurred, impenetrable intersection of the two. In the debate between mimesis and anti-mimesis,…
Few debut albums have, since their initial release date, so easily defined themselves as a milestone and game-changer for a genre in the way of…
Sufjan Stevens What exactly is Sufjan Stevens ascending on his latest album? Celebrity? Corporate attention? This current political moment? God? All that and more, quite…
While perhaps slightly more superficial than a typical Morris, My Psychedelic Love Story is still another successful entry in the director’s continuing interrogation of late-1960s America.…
Mosul nails its action spectacle and kinetic foundation, but it is ultimately only able to conceive of its subject matter in war movie clichés. Yet another…
With Lovers Rock, McQueen mostly turns down his directorial affectations and let’s the film’s beauty and joy act as guide. Steve McQueen has always been a…
Superintelligence undermines its innocuous silliness and any potential rom-com aspirations with needlessly complicated stakes and a fixation on its own high concept. There’s a genuinely charming…
Microphones The unfolding biography of Phil Elverum’s life — which he has for years been telling under his Mount Eerie moniker, most exceptionally in a…
Happiest Season is trite, platitude-heavy Christmas offering that fails on nearly every front. Five years ago, when Todd Haynes’ Carol hit theaters, a moment was marked in which…
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…
In Wonder is an unfortunately empty, depthless bit of underwhelming, barely cinematic fan service. Who is Shawn Mendes? For anyone over the age of 25, that…
The Chicks In her Netflix documentary Miss Americana, Taylor Swift admits to long viewing the Dixie Chicks as a cautionary tale. Referencing their anti-Bush comments…
Between the World in Me capitalizes on the power and poetry of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ words but contributes considerably less as a visual document. Published in 2015,…
Run could have been a bit of delightful trash but is instead a disaster of mismanaged tone. Let’s be very clear about one thing, just…
Mangrove too often gets lost in its dusty courtroom formula, but it at least boasts a human center that contrasts with the film’s trial spectacle. Steve…
Leap of Faith is a fascinating fireside-style docu-chat that affords William Friedkin the space to freeform story-tell. It’s a particular challenge (if not entirely futile endeavor)…
Sound of Metal is not the sonic game-changer that its marketing once suggested, but it works marginally better as a restrained, if formulaic drama. Sound of Metal…
The Giant is a textbook YMMV film: an audacious, elliptical fever dream that boasts a deeply affected style executed with a surprisingly sure hand. A dread…
Clearly indebted to the stylings of Guy Maddin, The Twentieth Century unfortunately feels merely mannered rather than touched by any genuine madness. In the Canada…
Vanguard worships at the feet of CGI and grievously wrongs the past and present of action cinema in the process. Stanley Tong was at best a…