First, we must speak of trailers that give too much away, something that dampened the exquisite terror of SPEAK NO EVIL for me. Its trailer deprives those who see it of the joy in discovering the twists and turns the story uses in order to turn the film into something other than what we expect… Read More »
BLINK TWICE
With BLINK TWICE we traverse the sticky territories of toxic masculinity, cultural power structures, and the apology industry that has grown out those first two phenomena. While it’s script by E.T. Feigenbaum and director Zoë Kravitz sometimes hangs together with spit and baling wire, there is no denying the gut punch it delivers with suspense… Read More »
ALIEN: ROMULUS
ALIEN: ROMULUS may be the strongest entry into the franchise since the original. Certainly, this taut thriller provides strong characters, and an even stronger sense of dread, concentrating on the horror of the unknown that turns out to be as unstoppable as it is homicidal. The high-minded philosophical musings found in PROMETHEUS, for example, are… Read More »
THE SHAKEDOWN
Ari Kruger’s THE SHAKEDOWN is a bonkers black comedy that celebrates family values with a body count. A heady blend of sibling rivalry, slick salesmanship, and a rabbi with a gambling problem, it takes the buddy film in unpredictable directions as two estranged brothers cope with a simple plan gone very wrong after one of… Read More »
LONGLEGS
With LONGLEGS, writer/director Oz Perkins has created an original tale of horror set in the 1990s while staying true to familiar tropes. There’s an unhinged suspect, a series of family slaughters that don’t ring true to a murder/suicide scenario, and a neophyte FBI agent at the center of the case in ways she didn’t see… Read More »
TIME OF THE HEATHEN
There could be no better time to re-discover Peter Kass’ lost black-and-white masterpiece, TIME OF THE HEATHEN. Taking as its theme man’s inhumanity to man (and woman), Kass uses the microcosm of racism as well as the macrocosm of society blindly following rules, legal and cultural, to give us a searing indictment of humanity as… Read More »
LIMBO
LIMBO begins with an Aboriginal painting that gradually fades into the cobbled landscape of the sere and foreboding landscape of the Australian outback. That is where Travis Hurley (Simon Baker) has been sent to look into re-opening the cold case of a missing Aboriginal girl who vanished from the eponymous town of Limbo twenty years… Read More »
RESTORE POINT
RESTORE POINT is a first-rate neo-noir set in a near-dystopian near future. The year in 2041, and the social and economic unrest plaguing Middle Europe has resulted in such violence that a new civil right has been bestowed on its residents. Anyone found to have been killed as a result of violence is guaranteed a… Read More »
IN THE LAND OF SAINTS AND SINNERS
IN THE LAND OF SAINTS AND SINNERS is a melancholy study of the futility of violence. Set in the war-torn Northern Ireland of 1974, it features a performance by Liam Neeson that is considered, measured, and infinitely eloquent for its silences in a story that eschews politics as it finely observes the consequences of choices,… Read More »
PROJECT DOROTHY
James (Tim DeZarna) is a tough old bird whose life choices have not served him well, but the cynicism this has engendered has not destroyed his moral compass. Not entirely, anyway. That is fortunate because his latest choice has put the fate of humanity in his hands. In PROJECT DOROTHY, James and his partner in… Read More »
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