Peter Dinklage is a triple threat in this touching and tragic musical romance The lovely and entrancing new musical Cyrano owes as much to Shakespeare as to its original author Edmond Rostand. The fingerprints of Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 film adaptation … Continue reading Cyrano Review: No Nose is Good News
Kristen Stewart stars in a hallucinatory horror film about the dehumanizing effects of tradition. For many of us, the upcoming holiday season is tinged with a sense of dread. As much as the holidays are a time of joy and … Continue reading Spencer Review: Ghosts of Christmas Past
The first half of the sci-fi epic is beautifully realized but frustratingly lopsided. Update: Warner Bros. has officially greenlit Dune: Part Two The more new films I see that serve as individual entries in a multi-film saga, the more awed … Continue reading Dune: Part One Review: Spice Spice Baby
Despite some gnarly violence, the third second Halloween movie is a dull, fan servicing mess. Full disclosure, I haven’t seen the first Halloween. I mean, I’ve seen the first first Halloween, but not the third first Halloween. Or the second … Continue reading Halloween Kills Review: Less Talk, More Stabbing
Tom Hardy and Woody Harrelson navigate toxic relationships in this off-kilter superhero rom-com Remember those weird-concept romantic comedies from the 80s? You know, the ones where a guy falls in love with a mannequin possessed by the soul of an … Continue reading Venom: Let There Be Carnage Review: Tentacle Difficulties
Everything is exactly as it seems in this mundane road trip western. There’s a comforting simplicity to the world depicted in Cry Macho. Men are strong and stoic, women are either virtuous or temptresses, cities are dens of sin and … Continue reading Cry Macho Review: Clint Eastwood Serves Up Macho Cheese
The cards never quite form a winning hand in Paul Schrader’s bleak horror noir. How much are we responsible for our own actions? To what extent is the path of our lives forged by chance or by choice? And when … Continue reading Review: Oscar Isaac Tries to Control the Game in The Card Counter
Nia DaCosta’s sequel to the 1992 horror classic falls into the very trap it attempts to critique. Sometimes I wonder if the success of Get Out did more harm than good for Black filmmakers. Suddenly you had a rush of … Continue reading Review: Candyman Looks Sweet But Lacks Sting
The director’s ode to comic book nonsense is violent, absurd, and refreshingly cinematic. I don’t know if you were aware of this, but comic books are ridiculous nonsense. They’re full of mutant freaks and interdimensional monsters who only stop punching … Continue reading Review: Obstacles are Opportunities in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad
If Woodstock was the heart of the 60s, the Harlem Cultural Festival was its soul. Michael Wadleigh’s 1970 documentary concert film Woodstock is widely considered the definitive cultural document of the 1960s. Yet the audience and performers in attendance during … Continue reading Review: Summer of Soul Celebrates the Sound of a Revolution
The long-awaited Summer gateway movie is inventive and charming, if a bit hollow. Here it is, just shy of one year since its original June 2020 premiere date, the musical movie event to launch you into Hot Girl Summer 2021. … Continue reading Review: In the Heights is a slightly watery Summer treat
It’s a big dick world, Wonder Woman’s just living in it. There is so much penis imagery in the DC Cinematic Universe it’s practically a house style at this point. Whether it’s the suspiciously folded contours of the Kryptonian escape … Continue reading Review: Wonder Woman 1984 Fights a Big Dick Enemy
David Fincher’s homage to golden-age cinema paints a bland portrait of the notorious screenwriter. “You can’t capture a man’s whole life in 2 hours, all you can hope is to leave an impression of one.” So what impression are we … Continue reading Review: Mank Draws a Blank
This magical and immersive dance party is a prescription for the 2020 blues. Lovers Rock is the second in a five-film anthology from director Steve McQueen. Read my review of the first film, Mangrove, here. God, remember parties? Remember the … Continue reading Review: Lovers Rock is 100% Good Vibes
Amy Adams and Glenn Close try to emote their way out of this toothless piece of poverty tourism. I didn’t hate Hillbilly Elegy, but then it’s difficult to hate a movie that so thoroughly lacks a point of view. J.D. … Continue reading Review: Hillbilly Elegy
Director Steve McQueen applies his distinctive visual style to a story of resistance within a vibrant London community. Long before it was the setting of Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant’s romantic hijinks, London’s Notting Hill neighborhood was home to a … Continue reading Review: Small Axe: Mangrove
The more heavily-scripted sequel contains flashes of brilliance but ultimately fails to offer anything new. Forgive the blinding obviousness of this statement, but a lot has changed in America since 2006, and I don’t just mean our downward spiral into … Continue reading Review: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
⚠️ This post contains spoilers. I tried for three days to write a cohesive review of Aaron Sorkin’s latest film The Trial of the Chicago 7, but it’s a film that is stubbornly difficult to distill in a way that … Continue reading Random Notes on The Trial of the Chicago 7
Scuttled by bad press on its release, Waterworld is a lot better than you remember A post-apocalyptic dystopia where survivors live off of the detritus of Earth’s former civilization while bands of petroleum-obsessed marauders terrorize the weak. A small outpost … Continue reading Wet Mad Max: Waterworld at 25
On the film’s 25th anniversary, Apollo 13 shows how much has changed in the way America responds to a crisis. Ask anyone who’s watched it to name a scene from the 1995 film Apollo 13 and odds are they’ll recall … Continue reading Apollo 13 and the Nostalgia of American Competence
⚠️ This article contains spoilers for the 1991 film Cape Fear 💥 Content Warning: sexual assault, child abuse I’ve found myself drawn to trash cinema in recent weeks (ask me about the shameful pleasures of the Underworld franchise). The deep … Continue reading In Cape Fear, Scorsese Drags Us Into the Muck
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