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Joyland
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Over and above its antique cautionary-tale framework, writer-director Saim Sadiq’s drama (co-written with American scenarist Maggie Briggs) is a mini-treatise on Pakistani society in the 21st century, particularly in the gender-role-playing arena.
Posted May 24, 2023
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You Hurt My Feelings
(2023)
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Jeffrey Edalatpour
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[The central] conflict wears thin almost immediately, but is supplemented by the director’s characteristic skill at managing a variety of sardonic subplots.
Posted May 24, 2023
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It Ain't Over
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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See this movie now.
Posted May 17, 2023
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Master Gardener
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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[A] hard-to-admire love-triangle drama.
Posted May 17, 2023
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Other People's Children
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Actor Efira does an admirable job with such a challenging character. Other People’s Children shows the parts usually left out of the amour fou romances and whirlwind enchantments that most people buy tickets to see.
Posted May 12, 2023
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Polite Society
(2023)
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Kelly Vance
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At 103 minutes, Polite Society is about 20 minutes too long.
Posted May 04, 2023
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Sisu
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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A concise, lean, brutal and inventive revenge actioner, with layers of mayhem atop a relatively simple proposition: This man is never going to let the Nazis take anything away from him. Never.
Posted Apr 26, 2023
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River
(2021)
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Kelly Vance
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The dazzling cinematography -- by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Ben Knight, Peter McBride and Renan Ozturk -- visits seemingly every corner of the world in seductive rhythmic progression.
Posted Apr 21, 2023
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How to Blow Up a Pipeline
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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[Director Daniel Goldhaber’s film] takes the time to characterize each of the eight millennial would-be bombers beyond the usual hasty background fill-in. That means less time for fireballs but more time to examine complex personalities and motives.
Posted Apr 14, 2023
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The Forger
(2022)
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Jeffrey Edalatpour
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Under normal circumstances, the story of Cioma Schönhaus’ brief career in forgery would be a standard crime drama. But Maggie Peren’s film, The Forger, inverts the genre, with much more at stake than someone pulling off a scheme to get rich.
Posted Mar 29, 2023
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A Good Person
(2023)
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Jeffrey Edalatpour
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A Good Person looks like it could have been made by any working director in Hollywood. It’s closed-in by precision and a cold professionalism, but does succeed as a vanity project.
Posted Mar 22, 2023
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Boston Strangler
(2023)
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Kelly Vance
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On the surface of it, Boston Strangler is a very routine-looking thriller with a topical wrinkle... And yet something happens in the movie’s last quarter, as the crimes’ pattern begins to spread itself out, like a stain on the sheets.
Posted Mar 15, 2023
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A Little White Lie
(2023)
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Kelly Vance
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Surprise: Maren and Shannon succeed after all, with help from Kate Hudson and an energetic cast of players.
Posted Mar 08, 2023
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Cocaine Bear
(2023)
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Kelly Vance
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Pretty good story, but Cocaine Bear takes it to new heights of ridiculousness.
Posted Mar 02, 2023
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The Quiet Girl
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Writer-director Bairéad, who might have learned how to shoot a landscape from watching the Hollywood westerns of John Ford, beguiles the audience into seeing Cáit’s life unfold as she does. Relax, and let it charm.
Posted Feb 23, 2023
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The Other Fellow
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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[A] user-friendly, chatty documentary.
Posted Feb 15, 2023
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The Little Soldier
(1963)
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Kelly Vance
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A gorgeous blast of cool black-and-white modernity, with the necessary slice of barbarism.
Posted Feb 10, 2023
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Woman of the Photographs
(2020)
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Kelly Vance
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It’s not often that a commercially released narrative film takes such an obsessive interest in the error of dwelling on the surface of things.
Posted Feb 01, 2023
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Condor's Nest
(2023)
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Kelly Vance
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Condor’s Nest is not an irritatingly bad movie, but it might have been more fun as a comic book.
Posted Jan 26, 2023
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Alice, Darling
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Alice, Darling, hardly a vital, hot-button participant in the current culture wars, neatly sidesteps most of its own narrative pitfalls thanks to Kendrick’s portrayal of the walking wounded female lead.
Posted Jan 19, 2023
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Jimmy in Saigon
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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The story is simultaneously sad and predictable, yet tender and tentative.
Posted Jan 18, 2023
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The Pale Blue Eye
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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The Pale Blue Eye, a bad movie encumbered by a good cast, probably came across better in outline than it does onscreen.
Posted Jan 12, 2023
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Broker
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Sounds like a sordid, queasy-making situation all around, until one realizes that Broker is written and directed by Kore-eda Hirokazu, [who] has specialized in seemingly messy, ultimately sincere and humanistic stories.
Posted Jan 06, 2023
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Corsage
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Corsage is neither humorous nor cruel enough to take the empress’ midlife crisis to the next level. Eventually, it quietly runs out of gas and is over.
Posted Dec 29, 2022
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Wildcat
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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The doc is a triumph of observation.
Posted Dec 29, 2022
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Babylon
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Chazelle's reach exceeds his grasp. Scene after scene spins away, out of control, pumped full of eye-popping, blaring, empty hyperactivity.
Posted Dec 21, 2022
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Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Anchored by actor Giménez’s quixotic performance, Bardo -- co-written by Nicolás Giacobone -- manages to finesse Silverio’s stranger-in-a-strange-land crisis of confidence into something that sticks in the mind.
Posted Dec 16, 2022
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Leonor Will Never Die
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Don’t expect much irony. But this reviewer was happy to see a female Philippine director making the art house rounds with her feature debut, even one as homemade-looking as this.
Posted Dec 13, 2022
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Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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del Toro doesn’t care. He pushes the political pedal all the way through the floorboards and stubbornly remains true to his roots...
Posted Dec 13, 2022
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All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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All the Beauty has a mission: to rally endangered creative types to resist those who would cynically exploit them in multiple ways while raking in truckloads of blood money. One can see it and be outraged.
Posted Dec 02, 2022
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White Noise
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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It’s not one of the filmmaker’s most coherent projects. Approach with caution.
Posted Dec 02, 2022
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The Menu
(2022)
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Jeffrey Edalatpour
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There’s no romantic spark between Fiennes and Taylor-Joy. There’s something better. Both actors have unfettered access to their inner villains.
Posted Nov 30, 2022
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The Inspection
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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A promising, provocative feature debut for filmmaker Bratton.
Posted Nov 28, 2022
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Town Destroyer
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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A remarkably perceptive documentary.
Posted Nov 04, 2022
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Holy Spider
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Director/co-screenwriter Abbasi is not trying for cheap thrills with his inspired-by-true-events account of a crazed serial killer and the female journalist who tracks him down.
Posted Oct 27, 2022
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Decision to Leave
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Park’s latest, Decision to Leave, may be his most compelling work yet -- faintly disturbing, extremely sensuous, elliptically plotted and elegant.
Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Piggy
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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[Pereda] offers a female wrinkle to the scenes of lurid grotesquery in the Iberian heartland. After visiting those provinces frequently through the eyes of Guillermo del Toro, it’s a pleasure to appreciate Pereda’s stylistic viewpoint. Let’s see more.
Posted Oct 13, 2022
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3/4
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Riotsville, USA
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Riotsville, USA displays things that anyone could have seen for themselves in the turbulent late 1960s. It was all around us, in city streets and college campuses. Battle lines were being drawn.
Posted Oct 07, 2022
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Bros
(2022)
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Jeffrey Edalatpour
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None of Bobby’s friends or coworkers are fleshed out beyond campy quips to correct or antagonize what is essentially his extended monologue.
Posted Oct 05, 2022
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Blonde
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Dominik can’t seem to reconcile MM’s effervescent screen personality with her miserable emotional state.
Posted Sep 30, 2022
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We Are As Gods
(2021)
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Kelly Vance
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You don't have to be a techno-hippie to be enthralled by We Are as Gods.
Posted Sep 23, 2022
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3/4
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Buried: The 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche
(2021)
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Kelly Vance
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Buried takes on a philosophical note with the recollections of the survivors. It's a detailed, minute-by-minute account of the vicissitudes of nature and the ultimate bravery of the rescuers.
Posted Sep 23, 2022
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See How They Run
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Relaxed and witty, See How They Run is an ideal non-anxiety-producing piece of popcorn entertainment for the busy autumn season.
Posted Sep 16, 2022
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Burial
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Burial may be a standard-brand war film, but it’s an extremely dumb horror item.
Posted Sep 08, 2022
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Kaepernick & America
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Kaepernick & America... is sure to awaken vivid memories for anyone who pays attention to the cultural temperature of the country -- how quickly it can reach the boiling point, and how it takes its time cooling off.
Posted Sep 01, 2022
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Breaking
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Boyega’s performance is heartbreakingly anguished. Meanwhile, actors Beharie and Leyva re-enact the familiar Stockholm Syndrome scenario, from shock to terror to resigned acceptance to a calm trust in someone far more rattled than they are.
Posted Aug 25, 2022
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Free Chol Soo Lee
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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As we examine the details of Lee’s case, its combination of poverty, social inequality, official indifference, casual racism and plain-old bad luck creates a whirlpool of misfortune that draws us in irresistibly.
Posted Aug 18, 2022
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Emily the Criminal
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Filmmaker Ford’s Emily screenplay makes good use of the wickedness lurking just beneath the surface of Plaza’s arguably comedic bad-girl persona.
Posted Aug 12, 2022
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Nope
(2022)
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Jeffrey Edalatpour
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OJ and Em find imaginative and practical ways to get themselves out of trouble. That’s why the audience goes along with them for the ride. They’re willing to let go of trauma the way children let go of helium-filled balloons.
Posted Aug 10, 2022
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Sharp Stick
(2022)
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Kelly Vance
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Sharp Stick is not the type of youth-market sitcom in which you can turn your mind off and passively follow along. It’s as rough and sticky as life itself.
Posted Aug 03, 2022
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