OUT OF DARKNESS is set 45,000 years ago, and uses a constructed language based on Basque, but it deals with some disturbingly contemporary and immediately recognizable issues. For a time and characters so remote from our experience, it is remarkable for how the story of a small band of hunter/gatherers resonates with all too identifiable… Read More »
ARGYLLE
Someone once opined, perhaps facetiously, that there is a fine line between stupid and brilliant. There isn’t. There is a wide yawning chasm that would take a super-laser traveling at the speed of light several millennia to cross, and even then, it would only register on the far side as a faint glimmer in the… Read More »
SALTBURN
Click here to listen to the interview with Emerald Fennell. It is fitting that SALTBURN starts with a flame. Emerald Fennell’s black comedy of a sophomore effort is, after all, a scorched earth approach to class warfare, and one that then proceeds to rub metaphorical salt in the wounds said warfare engenders. That’s it’s also… Read More »
THE BEEKEEPER
Yes, I’m going to say it again. Jason Statham makes everything better. Even in a dog of a flick, he’s worth watching (talking to you MEG 2: THE TRENCH). But when he’s in a well-crafted action flick that’s as fun as it is unpredictable, well, that’s darn near nirvana. And so it is with THE… Read More »
FERRARI
FERRARI is an exceptional immersive experience. Not just for the way it virtually puts you in the driver’s seat during the racing sequences, but also, and moreso, for the way it puts you in the mind of its title character as he negotiates a major turning point in his life. Michael Mann’s opus about the… Read More »
ALL OF US STRANGERS
What is real? Is it the physical world around us that, as Lily Tomlin once put it, is really nothing more than a collective hunch, or is it the emotional world we construct for ourselves from memory, and pain, and hope? Andrew Haigh’s enigmatic meditation of a film, ALL OF US STRANGERS considers just that… Read More »
POOR THINGS
Click here to listen to the flashback interview with Emma Stone for THE HELP. POOR THINGS is a glorious gothic fantasy of the grotesque and the macabre rendered with high art and low comedy. Filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos has found his muse in Emma Stone, who give a performance that blends careful construction with wild abandon.… Read More »
AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM
AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM is a tired pastiche of the super-hero/sci-fi genre most notable for being a perfect distillation of the phenomenon known as “super-hero fatigue”. Smothered by its been-there, seen-that vibe, it presents little to recommend it beyond Randall Park as both the embodiment of egregious exposition and the voice of reason. He… Read More »
WONKA
It would have been more wrong than I can enumerate not to reference 1971’s WILLIE WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY in its prequel, WONKA. Hence the purple cutaway coat, the top hat, and not just the only possible Oompa-Loompa song, but also the signature wistfulness of “Pure Imagination” by Leslie Bricusse & Anthony Newly. Screenwriters… Read More »
A HAUNTING IN VENICE
A HAUNTING IN VENICE finds master detective Hercule Poirot (director Kenneth Branagh) in a somber mood. Two world wars and first-hand knowledge of the evil that men (and women) do have prompted him to become a virtual recluse in Venice, where swarms of eager would-be clients are forcefully rebuffed by the formidable bodyguard (Vincenzo Di… Read More »
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