There is so much to admire about Julio Torres’s PROBLEMISTA, from its magnificent manifestations of metaphor to its tweaking of subjective norms and random exploitation in a provocative satire as dark as night, but as hopeful as a buoyant full moon. The one that reigns supreme, though, is what Torres has done with the desperate,… Read More »
GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE
The important takeaway from GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE, and, if one is being blunt, the only reason for it to exist, aside from those delightful miniature Stay-Puft marshmallow imps, is the delightful discovery that Kumail Nanjiani may very well be the cinematic heir of Bill Murray. Certainly, they are the only ones who consistently seem to… Read More »
IMMACULATE
The first and last words spoken in IMMACULATE are the Hail Mary. That prayer takes on very different meanings in each context, and in between them we have a film that is uneven, but oddly fascinating. Taken on one level, it is a screed against the patriarchy, with a woman reduced to her womb. On… Read More »
CABRINI
CABRINI is a handsome throwback to the hagiographies done so well by Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. Replete with luxurious cinematography worthy of anything to be found in a fine arts museum, it is fueled by a passionate, coolly confidant performance by Cristiana Dell’Anna as Mother Cabrini, America’s first saint. Amid the expected, and… 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 »
DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS
DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS may be another proof of the universe’s entropy. You know, the rule that posits everything is slowly devolving into a state of disarray and incoherence. Or something along those lines. This effort by Ethan Coen certainly shows flashes of the oddball genius of the films he made with his brother, Joel, but the… Read More »
HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS
If, in a parallel universe that I would very much like to visit, Chuck Jones hired Guy Maddin to create a Looney Tunes cartoon, the result might not be too different from Mike Cheslik’s HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS. This gleefully unhinged excursion into intrigue, romance, and the call of the wild transcends, and transgresses, many genres… Read More »
MADAME WEB
The short version about MADAM WEB is this. No. Just no. Seriously. No. The long version is this. After spending 1 hour and 57 minutes with MADAME WEB, the word that floats to mind is insipid. Written by a committee, and showing all that is wrong with that approach, it flouts any sense of logic,… Read More »
THE MONK AND THE GUN
Sooner or later, everyone in THE MONK AND THE GUN asks the obvious question. What would a monk want with a gun? The monk in this case is a Bhutanese Buddhist Lama, and he is about to break his meditation retreat two years early in order to perform a ritual that will need one. Actually,… Read More »
OUT OF DARKNESS
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 »
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