#19. Of all the new phrases to emerge into the online vernacular, one of the most useful has to be “main character syndrome.” Describing the…
The King’s Man is a tale of two films, neither of which belong in the other’s world. Every year, there’s at least one. In the odd…
Return to Hogwarts is the latest Harry Potter product to trade in empty nostalgia for sole the purpose of propping up the money-making franchise. As…
National Champions isn’t even good enough to make the playoffs. Adapted from the Adam Mervis play of the same name, Ric Roman Waugh’s National Champions follows…
Unstuck in Time offers intimate portraiture of its subject without ever resorting to apologia or hagiography. In 1982, a young Robert B. Weide wrote to his…
Boiling Point resists the temptation toward food porn aestheticizing and instead builds a tightly-wound thriller from the anxiety of a working-class existence. Perhaps more so than…
Jimmy O. Yang makes for an unconventional, likeable lead, but Love Hard is an otherwise frothy and disposable holiday trifle. The bafflingly titled Love Hard would seem…
Anonymous Animals is repetitive, unimaginitive, and facile in boths its ideas and images. Anonymous, indeed. If, for some misguided reason, you feel the need to create…
Minyan is a delicate film of subtle power, smartly weaving several threads into a rich coming-of-age portrait. Set in 1980s New York, Eric Steel’s Minyan is…
Last Night in Soho is a seductive and sumptuous Giallo riff, but suffers from a final act that undermines much of the film’s early power.…
The Estate succeeds in delivering cult-ready laughs, but feels entirely superficial and neutered as satire. A designer-rags to even-more-riches fable from director James Kapner and writer/leading…
Diana: The Musical is a tacky and tactless propanada mission that subverts its own fun flashiness with remarkable bad taste. When I was thirteen, I was…
Adapted from Stephen King’s slim debut novella, Brian De Palma’s Carrie is perhaps the quintessential modern witch narrative. Carrie White (Sissy Spacek), a bullied teenager…
With the release of last year’s conversational documentary Leap of Faith: In Conversation with William Friedkin, one thing has become abundantly clear — people are…
What We Left Unfinished never moves past the basic work of archivalism. 1921. 1989. 2021. The cycles of imperial superpowers invading, occupying, and summarily abandoning Afghanistan…
The Show is an imperfect beast, but it’s beautiful and horrifying in a way only Alan Moore can concoct. Northampton has always been a strange place.…
Lily Topples the World is a visually spectacular documentary, one with the added benefit of ready cleverness in supply. Joining the ranks of Netflix’s We…
499 boasts legitimate emotional weight, but undercuts its power with too much heavy-handed symbolism. Almost five centuries after the Spanish invasion of Mexico, a lone…
The Meaning of Hitler is a bold, risk-taking work from a confident directorial duo. Adapted from Sebastian Haffner’s The Meaning of Hitler, a book that the…
A documentary whose goofy, DIY sensibility matches its endearingly amateur subject matter, Lucy Harvey and Danielle Kummer’s Alien On Stage is the quintessential homegrown hero.…
Following the success of a documentary based on their experiences as addicts, two of the subjects and the director of Reindeerspotting: Escape From Santaland take…