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…
JUMBO manages to imbue its tricky material with sensitivity but at the expensive of teasing out much of its considerable potential. It’s not often that…
Blithe Spirit’s attempts at screwball comedy land with a dull, well-costumed thud. Mounting another film adaptation of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit isn’t a heretical…
The Swordsman is hamstrung by weak direction that has no idea how to shoot its otherwise well-choreographed action set pieces. The disgraced and retired warrior…
I Care a Lot is largely founded on cheap rhetoric, a film that hints at interesting ideas but which ultimately pulls its punches. Those searching…
It’s shouldn’t surprise that Willy’s Wonderland is an amusing enough experience, but it lacks the craft that would make it a more memorable blast. The…
Despite Rahim’s best efforts, The Mauritanian fails to bring anything new to the familiar thematic and historical territory it recycles. Kevin Macdonald’s The Mauritanian is…
Red Dot’s survivalist vision isn’t consistently executed, but there’s enough here to suggest Darborg is worth watching. There’s something appealingly primal about stranding movie…
Music is a generic, offensive slog that co-opts ASD in service of bland musical pomp and an imbalanced plot. Pop songstress Sia titling her directorial…
Dear Comrades! is a nuanced reckoning with Stalinist legacy and the lingering brutality left in his wake. Offering a solemn look at Soviet society in…
Judas and the Black Messiah energizes necessary rhetoric and is impeccably crafted, but diminishes its power by sticking so closely to a prescribed biopic template.…
Barb and Star plays to Wiig’s most overindulgent and weirdo instincts, failing to strike the balance of her best comedic work. The career path forged…
The Map of Tiny Perfect Things is yet another time loop flick that fails to do anything to energize its exhausted conceit. Note to Hollywood:…
Of Stan Brakhage’s ephemeral Desert, Fred Camper once wrote that “large and small, and inner and outer, worlds dance about each other in a…
French Exit is an absolute disaster. The end. It takes truly talented people both in front of and behind the camera to make something as…
Land works best as a swooning mood piece, but lacks in thematic complexity and is too familiar by half. In Land — one of the…
Black Medusa In a thankless role as one of the most morose femmes fatales in memory, Nour Hajri plays Nada, a (mostly) mute office…
The myth of Orpheus seems to tell us that in the face of overwhelming grief, the hardest thing to do is have faith that…