BLINDSPOTTING is a contemporary fable told in dynamic syncopation and unexpected compassion as it uncovers the farce and tragedy of an Oakland in transition.
SKYSCRAPER
It is a mantra that I have repeated at least once a day for many, many years now. Technology is our friend, but it is not our >good< friend. While my invocation of that is generally limited to computers, pay-stations, and the notorious aggravations of the voice-mail maze, SKYSCRAPER, the latest action flick from Dwayne Johnson, takes it to a whole new level while also sending a love letter to the low-tech reliability, magic even, of duct tape.
DAMSEL
This fiercely iconoclastic western uses many tropes from that cinematic genre, from the classics of John Ford to the more recent idioms of Sergio Leone, but the references are merely window dressing. Part comedy, part tragedy, part feminist manifesto, and all engrossing, it subverts expectations at every turn while delivering a film that refuses to be pigeonholed.
THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS
As the documentary THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS opens, Bobby Shafran, one of the eponymous strangers, notes that the story he’s about to tell is unbelievable. And it is. But the way that Tim Wardle’s dark meditation on good intentions gone very wrong unfolds, the story of how the three identical triplets separated at birth found each other at the age of 19, is the least of it.
HEARTS BEAT LOUD
Click here for the flashback interview with Brett Haley and Katharine Ross for THE HERO. Timing is everything, as we learn in Brett Haley’s HEARTS BEAT LOUD, an irresistible, perfectly balanced comedy-drama about love, loss, and that old truism about the only constant that we can count on is change. It’s also Nick Offerman being… Read More »
JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM
I’ll give JURASSIC WORLD:FALLEN KINGDOM this. When it leaps off the rails into utter inanity, it does so with grim determination and the courage of its (misguided) convictions. It continues on, camera swooping majestically and music swelling heroically with monotonous regularity, robbing the few truly worthy moments of their specialness, and drowning the rest of… Read More »
HEREDITY
The only thing wrong with HEREDITY is that is bound to spawn increasingly inferior installments in a new franchise that is as inevitable as its protagonists’ descent into madness. That aside, this deeply disturbing horror film does not need the supernatural in order to worm its way into the darkest recesses of your psyche where… Read More »
OCEAN’S 8
So maybe you have a film franchise that is running out of steam. Maybe one of the stars wants out. Maybe his character was killed off to accommodate that. Maybe an actress has an idea for reviving that franchise with some panache and a dash of ovarian power. You can’t help thinking that one of… Read More »
AMERICAN ANIMALS
Click here to listen to the interview with Bart Layton. At a pivotal moment in Bart Layton’s emotionally charged AMERICAN ANIMALS, a character looks out of the car in which he is riding and sees the real person on whom he is based staring back at him as the car glides by. It’s not a… Read More »
SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY
Click here for the flashback interview with Alden Ehrenreich for BEAUTIFUL CREATURES. SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY annotates and amplifies the mythos surrounding that devilish anti-hero of the franchise, Han Solo. Set well before the events of EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE, it introduces us to Han before he learned to fly, but after he… Read More »