Monsoon is a poetic, aching work that details both the reclamation and awakening of one man’s lost identity. The alienation of a Vietnamese expatriate named Kit…
Triggered is a derivative, generic horror flick populated by insufferable assholes. Pass. With a title like Triggered, one might be forgiven for expecting some kind of…
Echo Boomers is a gratingly stupid film that is content to settle for mindless superficial strokes. “A true story…if you believe in such things.” So goes…
Girl is a deeply unremarkable, almost anonymous film that nonetheless testifies to the fascinating, untapped presence Bella Thorne offers. There isn’t real reason to brood much…
Dating Amber is a nice enough film in the way of so many other forgettable, generic coming-of-age efforts. Perhaps it should be taken as progress that…
Make Up brings a welcome horror twinge and unsettling tenor to an otherwise familiar kitchen sink drama. There’s no shortage of coming-of-age stories out there, so…
Born to Be tackles important subject matter but too often treats the individuals at its heart as subjects rather than partners in the documentary’s creation. Born…
Spontaneous tries to be too many things at once, and ultimately doesn’t scratch the surface of any of them. Spontaneous is a lot of things:…
Ham on Rye is a welcome departure from the typical trappings of a coming-of-age film. Coming-of-age narratives make up a significant proportion of contemporary independent…
The Antenna is a strange amalgam that might hold some intrigue for horror fans but is otherwise just another drab, generic Eastern Bloc allegory. Director Orcun…
La Belle Èpoque is superficial at best, and an endless string of clichés at worst. Time travel is a popular mechanism throughout film history for…
Once Upon a River is frequently pretty to look at, but Rose fails to build much depth into the film’s fable-like narrative. Once Upon a River…
Let’s Scare Julie fails to deliver on even its most basic promises, leaving the viewer unscared and uninterested. The big hook of the new teen…
Death of Me begins on a promising note, but lacks any follow-through or unique experience to warrant its making. There’s a scene early on in…
Beasts Clawing at Straws is a derivative, charmless bit of Tarantino-aping nonsense. The new Korean crime thriller Beasts Clawing at Straws is a derivative, charmless bit…
With direct-to-video/streaming action films now a bonafide cottage industry with their own tropes, star filmmakers and performers, and aesthetic trappings, the real mediocrities are becoming…
Trump Card was always going to be pathetic, but it surprises in demonstrating new lows of argumentation and cohesion from its soft-minded director. Dinesh D’Souza has,…
Laura Gabbert has a knack for pairing gastronomy and film — as in her 2016 documentary, City of Gold, which profiles Jonathan Gold, the first…
Pierre Cardin, indisputably, is one of the most iconic names in the realm of fashion — known to many as a genius, a hyper-modernist, an…
One of 2020’s greatest mysteries is how a film like Guest House received funding? Ostensibly conceived as a star vehicle for the Laurence Olivier of…