Edward Norton’s Motherless Brooklyn, based on Jonathan Lethem’s novel, is by Norton’s own admission a passion project some 20 years in the making. It’s easy to…
Though he didn’t invent it, James Mangold so perfected the Hollywood biopic/true story template with Walk the Line that they made a beat-for-beat parody of…
Playing out with an advocacy doc’s briskness and efficiency of exposition rather than a suspenseful chronicle of investigative journalism, Scott Z. Burns’ The Report is…
The Irishman tells the probably-not-entirely-true story of Robert DeNiro’s Frank Sheeran, using cutting-edge visual effects technology to place him inside some of the most important…
Ever since his 2003 debut, House of 1000 Corpses, Rob Zombie has used cinema to engage the paradox of counter-cultural extremity and populism. Raised as…
Universal’s marketing department has been working overtime to sell the new romantic comedy Last Christmas as some sort of spiritual cousin to what is now apparently…
In the realm of unnecessary sequels, Stephen King’s follow-up novel to his beloved The Shining would seem to be running neck and neck for first place…
Sarah Connor ostensibly changed the future and defeated Skynet in 1991, averting the cataclysm that would have been Judgment Day. But the Terminators and the…
The King At first glance, adapting a story about the seat of privilege that is the throne might seem like an unexpected move for Australian…
The Cave Since the Syrian Civil war began in 2011, there has been no shortage of documentaries about the plight of the nation’s people, the…
Ridley Scott’s Alien is celebrating its 40th anniversary, and so here comes Memory: The Origins of Alien. Part behind-the-scenes featurette, part essay film, one wishes…
François Ozon‘s latest jumps from the testimony of one character to the next, following the thread of its main subject: a priest’s sexual abuse of…
It’s nigh-impossible to discuss the new film In My Room, from Berlin School-affiliated writer/director Ulrich Köhler, without revealing that a third of the way in, seemingly…
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 into some…
With Pain and Glory, Pedro Almodóvar has made his own 8½, seamlessly melding autobiography and fiction here to the point where they’re nearly indistinguishable. Even though the protagonist…
Another in a long line of recent horror entries chronicling an everyday individual possessed by an evil entity, The Dead Center sparks initial interest simply…
The Lighthouse is, in some ways, the last film we need right now. A male-centric chamber piece, Robert Eggers’s latest revels in the grotesqueries of guydom: farts, hooch, and…
Ira Sachs’ Frankie is a film of bourgeois comforts. Set in summery Sintra, it offers any number of picturesque views of the Portuguese town, which…
Synonyms is a film driven by an idea, one that rattles around in its protagonist’s head and belabors him at every step. The question is one…
You would be forgiven for thinking that director Michael Beach Nichols’ Wrinkles the Clown is yet another horror film capitalizing on the current coulrophobia craze,…