The Nowhere Inn smartly softens its meta conceit with some winking humor, but doesn’t interrogate any of its ideas or rise above mere brand management.…
The Starling is merely the latest by-the-numbers “issues” flick in Theodore Melfi’s bland filmography. It seems that director Theodore Melfi has never met a subject…
Cinderella has exactly one idea to distinguish it, and it’s a bad one. 2021’s latest interpretation of the Cinderella fairy tale comes courtesy of Pitch…
The Guilty Antoine Fuqua has made a career out of directing populist, middlebrow fare that seeks nothing more than to entertain audiences for a…
Prisoners of the Ghostland is neither Sono nor Cage’s finest work, but it’s a good enough fix for those in need of either’s madman energy.…
Blue Bayou’s reach for authenticity is entirely undermined by its empty, saccharine sheen of melodrama. In its broad strokes, writer-director Justin Chon’s Blue Bayou…
Malignant isn’t a start-to-finish success, but its final 30 minutes solidify it as one of the wildest, weirdest horror films in some time. In interviews…
Titane What is the role of “transgressive” art in an ostensibly liberal society? Or, to put it another way: In a cultural context where…
Reflection While Ukrainian writer/director Valentin Vasyanovych has been making films for a number of years, his breakthrough didn’t come until 2019’s Atlantis, which garnered…
Wife of a Spy can be too reserved in stretches, but is ultimately fully invigorated by its monumental conclusion. Though over three decades into…
Little Girl misunderstands where its focus should be and strips away most of its ambiguity, leaving little to really contend with. In the opening…
Another year, another TIFF. Due in part to its situation in the calendar year relative to other major international fests, and in part to…
The Card Counter takes a similar shape to many of Schrader’s Lonely Man films, but this latest can’t quite overcome the template and thrive…
Kate isn’t doing anything new from an action-narrative perspective, but slick choreography and gleeful violence helps this girlboss brutality go down smoothly. Kate, a…
TMBMZM oddly tilts toward authenticity rather than camp, to disappointing results. The Manson Brothers Midnight Zombie Massacre is a title that promises a lot.…
Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is famous for its portrayal of an inscrutable facial expression, that indelible half-smirk-half-smile…
Striding Into the Wind One of the central tensions in cinema is that of authenticity: The inherent power of this medium comes from its…
The Alpinist suffers a bit thanks due to a lack of access and more substantive commentary, but the frequent breathtaking feats captured are memorable…