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3.5/5
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Godzilla Minus One
(2023)
|
Richard Whittaker
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There's as much of Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru here as there is the rubber-suit genius of Godzilla creator Ishirō Honda, and that's a pairing as powerful as any monster mash-up.
Posted Nov 30, 2023
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4/5
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Fallen Leaves
(2023)
|
Josh Kupecki
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The creator is a sly skeptic, a prankster with a penchant for old-school R&B and downtrodden losers, whose heart retains a sliver of compassion for humanity as they bumble about his brutalist sets searching for meaning or ignoring it entirely.
Posted Nov 30, 2023
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3/5
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Where the Devil Roams
(2023)
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Richard Whittaker
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Where the Devil Roams may be the family's most complete movie, and its febrile and claustrophobic horrors will sneak into your nightmares.
Posted Nov 29, 2023
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2/5
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Napoleon
(2023)
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Richard Whittaker
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Try as he might to capture the political complexities of their relationship and how it was sacrificed because of the needs for an heir, Scott tells rather than shows. It's all strategy, no tactics
Posted Nov 22, 2023
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|
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Problemista
(2023)
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Jenny Nulf
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While Problemista might have some bumps, they are minor in the scheme of [Torres'] enormous creativity.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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|
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I Used to be Funny
(2023)
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Jenny Nulf
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Healing is not linear, and I Used to Be Funny adeptly displays that process, exploring Sam’s pain without making the experience of watching the film painful, and honestly refreshing exploration of a subject that’s so often brutal to witness.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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3.5/5
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The Starling Girl
(2023)
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Jenny Nulf
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The Starling Girl’s thoughtfulness and lingering optimism toward a story that is predictably sorrowful is a necessary balance.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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2/5
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To Catch a Killer
(2023)
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Jenny Nulf
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Szifron and his co-writer Jonathan Wakeham play it too safe, creating an aggressively stale procedural that doesn’t pack the gut punch it wants to deliver.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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3/5
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Every Body
(2023)
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Jenny Nulf
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Every Body’s existence is what matters at the end of the day, and hopefully it encourages the creation of more films like it.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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2.5/5
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Insidious: The Red Door
(2023)
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Jenny Nulf
|
Similar to Wan’s The Conjuring universe, Insidious has long overstayed its welcome, reaching the point where its spark has quelled and there’s nothing interesting buried within these characters anymore. We have reached the end of the Further.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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3/5
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Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story
(2023)
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Jenny Nulf
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Gran Turismo is perhaps a more basic film for Blomkamp, but a welcome reminder that his breakthrough first feature District 9 wasn’t a fluke.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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3.5/5
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The Unknown Country
(2022)
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Jenny Nulf
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The Unknown Country is a naturalistic exploration of America that’s hopeful of human connection in the midst of a country that sometimes feels hostile.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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2/5
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Golda
(2023)
|
Jenny Nulf
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Golda isn’t a failure of skill, but one of vision.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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2/5
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The Nun II
(2023)
|
Jenny Nulf
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The Nun II might be a slight step up from the slog that was The Nun, but that’s a low bar to creep up from.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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2.5/5
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Dicks: The Musical
(2023)
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Jenny Nulf
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Dicks: The Musical seems like a fun, boundary-pushing LGBTQIA+ romp, but there’s no juice.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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3/5
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It Lives Inside
(2023)
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Jenny Nulf
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It Lives Inside at least isn’t just another mainstream horror weepy about grief – there’s a lot more that it’s playing around with...
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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2.5/5
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Your Lucky Day
(2023)
|
Jenny Nulf
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The heart is in the right place for Your Lucky Day, but the execution is a little loose.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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2.5/5
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Saltburn
(2023)
|
Jenny Nulf
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Saltburn, despite all its lavish qualities and fun throwbacks, is an overstuffed and at times dated dive into society’s obsession with how the other half lives.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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2/5
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Wish
(2023)
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Jenny Nulf
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Wish is a disappointment. What could have been a beautiful celebration of Disney’s past ends up being one big poorly designed Easter egg hunt. The heart is in the right place, but the pieces never add up to something more.
Posted Nov 17, 2023
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2/5
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The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
(2023)
|
Kimberley Jones
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Snow’s evolution from war-scarred orphan to what Donald Sutherland is playing in the original quadrilogy is rendered as blank as, well, snow.
Posted Nov 16, 2023
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3/5
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Trolls Band Together
(2023)
|
Alejandra Martinez
|
What resonates most about Trolls Band Together are its lessons about self-acceptance and letting go of perfectionism. It’s a great message for young kids to internalize, and perhaps a good reminder for adults in the audience, too.
Posted Nov 16, 2023
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1.5/5
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Next Goal Wins
(2023)
|
Alejandra Martinez
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Aside from being bafflingly backward, the jokes at work are lazy and flat.
Posted Nov 16, 2023
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3/5
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The Strangler
(1970)
|
Richard Whittaker
|
Paul Vecchiali's newly restored 1970 crime flick is, instead, a meditation that crawled onto the Left Bank of post-war French philosophical ruminations.
Posted Nov 16, 2023
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4/5
|
Carpet Cowboys
(2023)
|
Josh Kupecki
|
Hilarious and poignant documentary.
Posted Nov 16, 2023
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4/5
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May December
(2023)
|
Kimberley Jones
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May December loses some of its hypnotic weirdness – but it becomes a more emotionally rewarding film for it.
Posted Nov 16, 2023
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3/5
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Thanksgiving
(2023)
|
Richard Whittaker
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It's a memorable addition to the pantheon of great slasher openings, and reveals two essential lists: one of potential killers, and one of seemingly inevitable victims, plus the clear if not overly memorable final girl in Jessica (Verlaque).
Posted Nov 16, 2023
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2.5/5
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It's a Wonderful Knife
(2023)
|
Richard Whittaker
|
As early Christmas presents go, It's a Wonderful Knife isn't one you'll regift or take back to the store, but it might end up next to that chafing dish you never use.
Posted Nov 09, 2023
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3/5
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Manodrome
(2023)
|
Richard Whittaker
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It's Eisenberg who finds Ralphie in those narrative spaces, creating a whole and crushingly convincing portrait of a profoundly lost man, and the damage left in his wake.
Posted Nov 09, 2023
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4/5
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The Delinquents
(2023)
|
Josh Kupecki
|
Effortlessly charming and more than a little generous with its asides, The Delinquents is a film that lays out surprises and delights like a lavish feast – although it’s no surprise for those who’ve been paying attention.
Posted Nov 09, 2023
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Day of the Fight
(2023)
|
Alejandra Martinez
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The emotional preoccupations of the movie show a screenwriter tuned into the complexities of human emotions and relationships, and Huston knows how to get truly moving work out of his cast.
Posted Nov 09, 2023
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2/5
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The Marvels
(2023)
|
Richard Whittaker
|
A film begins with the script. It quickly becomes abundantly clear that the problems with The Marvels start with a lumpen, exposition-laden, charmless, and emotionally flat one ... and it's all downhill from there.
Posted Nov 08, 2023
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4/5
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The Disappearance of Shere Hite
(2023)
|
Alejandra Martinez
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The Disappearance of Shere Hite is an illuminating, haunting, and ruminative documentary worth watching, if not for crystalizing the history of Hite’s work on film then for a look at how much and how little things have changed for women.
Posted Nov 02, 2023
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3.5/5
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Radical
(2023)
|
Josh Kupecki
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Radical may hit all the requisite narrative arcs, but it does so with a level of nuance and examination that other films of this type either gloss over or ignore entirely.
Posted Nov 02, 2023
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2/5
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Divinity
(2023)
|
Richard Whittaker
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For a movie about our relationship with our bodies, there's surprisingly little intellectual meat on its pretentious bones.
Posted Nov 02, 2023
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3.5/5
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Priscilla
(2023)
|
Steve Davis
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Coppola’s deceptively languid directorial style perfectly suits her vision here. She doesn’t impose any overarching interpretation onto the film, but rather allows meaning to work its way into your consciousness.
Posted Nov 02, 2023
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3/5
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What Happens Later
(2023)
|
Steve Davis
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A young audience may not fully appreciate the existential quandary the two principals face here. But those with a little more life under their belts will likely feel differently.
Posted Nov 01, 2023
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|
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American Fiction
(2023)
|
Rod Machen
|
American Fiction deals with a quaint notion, the idea of selling out... Throw in squeamishness around issues of race in this country, and filmmaker Cord Jefferson has created quite a narrative cocktail.
Posted Oct 31, 2023
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|
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Egghead & Twinkie
(2023)
|
Alejandra Martinez
|
Egghead & Twinkie is a sweet and engaging movie. It’s not afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve and offer a pretty wholesome take on the queer coming-of-age genre.
Posted Oct 30, 2023
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4/5
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The Killer
(2023)
|
Richard Whittaker
|
It's really a character study of a working-class stiff, of the kind that Raymond Carver would enjoy.
Posted Oct 26, 2023
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3/5
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Inspector Sun
(2022)
|
Richard Whittaker
|
A giddy old-school serial adventure romp that will introduce kids to the wonders of vintage cinematic detectives.
Posted Oct 26, 2023
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2.5/5
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The Canterville Ghost
(2023)
|
Richard Whittaker
|
While the youngest audiences might find some charm in its broader comedy, the version of The Canterville Ghost may be most appreciated by tweens with a flair from romance and grandeur.
Posted Oct 23, 2023
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3/5
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Mutiny in Heaven: The Birthday Party
(2023)
|
Richard Whittaker
|
What White captures is the raw yet deliberate, accidental but structured energy of the Birthday Party, and how a certain level of discomfort seemed to fuel their creativity and success.
Posted Oct 19, 2023
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3.5/5
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Killers of the Flower Moon
(2023)
|
Richard Whittaker
|
Killers of the Flower Moon feels like the work of a filmmaker who is doing more than just ticking off boxes on a decades-old wish list.
Posted Oct 19, 2023
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4/5
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Anatomy of a Fall
(2023)
|
Josh Kupecki
|
With surgical precision, Triet and co-writer Arthur Harari’s script exposes nearly every contemporary relationship schism you can imagine.
Posted Oct 19, 2023
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4/5
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TAYLOR SWIFT | THE ERAS TOUR
(2023)
|
Alejandra Martinez
|
It’s an impressive, career-spanning feat from one of our most notable performers that’s worth seeing on the biggest screen you can.
Posted Oct 16, 2023
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|
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Crumb Catcher
(2023)
|
Richard Whittaker
|
As the night pinwheels from drama to farce to tragicomedy, his [Chris Skotchdopole] clear, cold, and yet compassionate eye finds strange harmony in their emotional imbalance.
Posted Oct 12, 2023
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3/5
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Mister Organ
(2022)
|
Richard Whittaker
|
It's less an examination of the psyche of one man than a PSA about manipulators.
Posted Oct 12, 2023
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3/5
|
The Burial
(2023)
|
Rod Machen
|
Gary has all the markings of a walking, talking caricature, but there’s a humanity to Foxx’s portrayal of him that pushes The Burial into richer territory.
Posted Oct 05, 2023
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3/5
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The Royal Hotel
(2023)
|
Richard Whittaker
|
It's a feel-good ending that borders on trite, and even oddly carries a whiff of cultural imperialism. It's one of those instances in which a longer stay may have benefited the whole stay: Instead, it feels like an early and rushed checkout.
Posted Oct 05, 2023
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3.5/5
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Mami Wata
(2023)
|
Josh Kupecki
|
Mami Wata is a marvel to behold and Obasi throws in enough curveballs to this familiar story to keep you off-kilter.
Posted Oct 05, 2023
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