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Ezra
Reviews Ezra Last month, I was a juror in the Narrative Feature…
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Kneecap
Reviews Kneecap The Belfast schoolchildren stand in their classroom, singing “Óró Sé…
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Longing
Reviews Longing “Longing” is a remake of an award-winning Israeli film by…
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Between the Temples
Reviews Between the Temples Nathan Silver’s “Between the Temples” opens with a…
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Suspense
What can you really do about it if the world ends later tonight?
Reviews What can you really do about it if the world ends later tonight? Nicolas Cage stars in “Knowing.” “Knowing” is among the best science-fiction films I’ve seen — frightening, suspenseful, intelligent and, when it needs to be, rather awesome. In its very different way, it is comparable to the great “Dark City,” by the same director, Alex Proyas. That film was about the hidden nature of the world men think they inhabit, and so is this one. The plot involves the most fundamental of all philosophical debates: Is the universe deterministic or random? Is everything in some way preordained…
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Romance
Here
Reviews Here Early on in Bas Devos’ “Here,” Stefan (Stefan Gota), a Romanian construction worker living in Brussels, stands with a friend, watching the city trains roll by. The friend tells Stefan that the first trains in Europe “came through here.” Later in the film, Stefan stands next to Shuxiu (Liyo Gong), a woman he just met, looking out over the city from the wooded spot they’ve been exploring. After a long silence, he tells her the first trains in Europe “came through here”. There’s no further discussion in either moment. It’s just a small factoid offered up by one…
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Mystery
Anatomy of a Fall
Reviews Anatomy of a Fall It turns out that there’s still life in the courtroom drama if it’s a marital one, too. Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” starts with a traditional mystery but becomes an analysis of a different kind of fall than the literal one at its center. It’s about the decline of a partnership and how often these marital falls can happen in slow-motion, over years of resentments and betrayals. At its center is a stunning performance from Sandra Hüller, possibly the best of the year, as a woman who finds herself in the middle of a…
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Horror
Disappear Completely
Reviews Disappear Completely The truly impressive slice of nightmare fuel, “Disappear Completely,” premiering on Netflix today after a successful fest circuit run that included Fantastic Fest, almost feels like John Carpenter or Wes Craven’s “Nightcrawler.” Yeah, horror fans out there have probably already stopped reading this review and set about watching it. You’re welcome. Luis Javier Henaine’s film reminded me of classic works by Craven and Carpenter wherein deeply flawed men who think they know everything about the world discovered there are things well outside of their control in films like “Serpent and the Rainbow” and “In the Mouth of Madness.”…
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Drama
Music
Reviews Music Music, we are told, makes the people come together. Music, it so happens, makes the bourgeoisie and the rebel…okay, I’ll stop. But what, really, is the, or are the, function or functions or capability or capabilities of music? By simply using the word as the title for her new motion picture, writer/director Angela Schanelec invites the questions. In her vision, the answers are more allegorical than practical. Her picture is an exquisitely constructed cinematic work that functions more like an ever-shifting visual and aural sculpture than a narrative. It is a daring and assured subversion of conventional film…
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Documentary
Ren Faire
Reviews Ren Faire Lance Oppenheim’s three-part HBO docuseries “Ren Faire” walks that fine line between mocking and celebrating its incredibly unique subjects. I told a friend just now that I was reviewing a docuseries about a “Succession”-esque power struggle at a Renaissance fair, and he said, “So, a comedy?” Yes and no. While aspects of “Ren Faire” are undeniably funny, there are also parts that are equally fascinating regarding the human condition to give everything you have to one thing, either because you love it or really because you know nothing else. These people certainly don’t think there’s anything comedic about…
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Comedy
Hit Man
Reviews Hit Man People like to speak about a golden era of movies—the precise dimensions of which often shift based on the generation of the speaker—when Hollywood made products that were sexier, smarter, and just generally better. Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man” is for them. Like its protagonist’s ability to basically change identities depending on the situation, it’s a film that knows what its clients need, shifting from comedy to romance to thriller to a philosophical study of the human capacity to change. It’s one of the smartest films in years, a movie that’s reminiscent of everything from classic noir to the smooth…
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Action
The Fall Guy
Reviews The Fall Guy With the notable exception of “Barbie,” the modern blockbuster can be pretty serious stuff. Whether it’s the dense lore and world-building of “Dune” or “Avatar: The Way of Water,” or the self-serious connected universe of the MCU, blockbusters have often felt like work lately too. This is not to say that some of these films aren’t masterful, only that there’s been a dearth of old-fashioned entertainment, the kind of Hollywood productions designed to entertain above all else. A movie where you don’t need to take notes or have seen the ones that came before it. “The Fall Guy”…
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Amazon Prime
Swarm
Reviews Swarm Dominique Fishback plays the world’s biggest and most murderous Beyoncé super fan in “Swarm,” a blood-splattered pop culture provocation from co-creators Janine Nabers and Donald Glover. Her Houstonian character Dre is willing to max out credit cards for concert tickets, just as much as she’s ready to murder online trolls to defend the celebrity’s honor. It matters only for legal reasons that the singer Fishback’s Dre is obsessed with is actually referred to in this Prime Video limited series as Ni’Jah (Nirine S. Brown), not Beyoncé. But the opening words before each episode, as abrasive as other things in…
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Action
The Roundup: Punishment
Reviews The Roundup: Punishment “The Roundup: Punishment” is the third sequel in a series of Korean cop thrillers featuring a tank-sized boxer nicknamed the “monster cop.” Somehow, these movies aren’t as fun as that suggests. Ma Dong-seok, aka Don Lee, plays Seok-do, the only memorable constant in this episodic action franchise, which began in 2017 with the hit “The Outlaws.” In the last three movies, Seok-do punched bad guys across the room and smashed through whatever physical obstacles stood in his way. Because what else are you going to do with a guy who looks like Benjamin Grimm’s second cousin?…
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Suspense
No more than three hostages allowed on most trips
Reviews No more than three hostages allowed on most trips Peyton List in “Shuttle.” Why do I have to watch this movie? Why does anyone? What was the impulse behind this sad, cruel story? Is there, as they say, “an audience for it”? I guess so. The critic “Tex Massacre” at bloodydisgusting.com rates it four skulls out of five, and says, “while gorehounds might not be doing backflips over the blood loss, they should appreciate that director Edward Anderson makes the kills relatively painful and wholly grounded in reality.” I’m not sure if the gorehounds will think there is too…
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Romance
Marmalade
Reviews Marmalade Keir O’Donnell’s delightful feature debut “Marmalade” is the kind of comedy that zigs when you expect it to zag, like a carnival ride that catches you by surprise. It’s a story of love and crime, of betrayals and chases, and yet it feels fresh and exciting once the first unexpected dip throws you off-course. This is not your typical “bank robbery gone wrong” kind of movie, nor does it follow the familiar beats of a Bonnie and Clyde-style “lovers on the lam” story. “Marmalade” is a strange mix of its own, launching the rom com criminal premise to…
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Mystery
Rotting in the Sun
Reviews Rotting in the Sun Full frontal male nudity abounds in Chilean director Sebastián Silva’s acidly wry metafiction “Rotting in the Sun,” a comedy of discomfort, co-written with his longtime collaborator Pedro Peirano, populated with awful people drowning in privileged ennui. Silva embodies an off-putting, pathetic, ketamine-loving caricature of himself—hopefully born of an acute self-awareness and self-deprecation—living in an affluent area of Mexico City. “Only the optimist commits suicide,” he reads from Emil Cioran’s The Trouble with Being Born just before trying to prevent his dog Chima from eating human excrement. Seeking an ego boost, he googles himself only to discover…
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Horror
Sting
Reviews Sting Ninety-one minutes, including seven for closing credits, isn’t enough for “Sting,” a modestly scaled horror caper that pits a flesh-eating spider against a handful of Brooklynites. A little more would likely have gone a long way, given how rushed and underdeveloped many characters and animal attack scenes are in this polished genre exercise. Granted, a B-movie like this can only stand so much puffing up, but an extra 15-20 minutes probably wouldn’t have hurt this Spielberg-y creature feature, which boasts creature effects by Wētā Workshop (the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy). The makers of “Sting,” led by writer/director…
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Drama
The Vourdalak
Reviews The Vourdalak A proudly old-fashioned Gothic fable with grain and grit, the delectable “Vourdalak” is swift to announce in its early moments that we are in the hands of a skillful stylist. It’s pitch black and stormy when the tale begins. There is a knock on some door by a fearful man whose face we don’t see at first. Whatever we don’t see, filmmaker Adrian Beau telegraphs in a cheeky duel of light and shadow every time a loud thunder interrupts the man’s pleas to be let in, and reflects his silhouette on the door. That pulsating reflection is…
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Documentary
Brats
Reviews Brats I have seen so many hagiographic clip reels masquerading as documentaries that I kind of just presumed that Hulu’s “Brats” would be a similar love letter to the young stars of the ‘80s, the actors and actresses who shaped pop culture in the middle of the decade in a way that’s still being felt today. I’m happy to report it’s not that. It’s an ambitious, introspective look at how pop culture and acting careers can be shaped by reputation and even just a nickname. The words “Brat Pack” became something of an anchor on the careers of the…
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Comedy
I Used to Be Funny
Reviews I Used to Be Funny On stage, comedians use their words to make their audience laugh, gasp, or think—sometimes simultaneously. But what happens when a joke is used against a comedian? It’s one of the many thorny ideas Ally Pankiw’s bold feature debut “I Used to Be Funny” wrestles with over the course of its emotional story. When we first meet Sam (Rachel Sennott), she’s in a very serious funk, barely making it to the shower, withdrawn from the limelight of her local comedy club, and her good friends and concerned roommates Paige (Sabrina Jalees) and Philip (Caleb Hearon)…
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Amazon Prime
Air
Reviews Air “Air” bristles with the infectious energy of the man at its center: Sonny Vaccaro, who’s hustling to make the deal of a lifetime. Of course, we know from the start that the former Nike executive succeeded: Michael Jordan became a superstar and arguably the greatest basketball player in the history of the game. And the Air Jordan, the shoe that gives the film its title, became the best-known and most-coveted sneaker of all time. So how do you tell a story to which we already know the outcome? That’s where the deceptive brilliance of Ben Affleck’s directing lies.…
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Action
Boy Kills World
Reviews Boy Kills World Several enemies of the state are murdered on live TV in a pivotal scene from “Boy Kills World,” a hyper-action movie about a media-addicted killer who wants to avenge his family’s deaths. We don’t know who these TV casualties are or what people think of their deaths, but we do know that their killers are Frosty Puffs cereal mascots. This should be a spoiler, but it’s not. Frosty Puffs are proud sponsors of The Culling, an annually televised flex of power organized by the insecure fascist Melanie Van Der Koy (Michelle Dockery) and her family. Frosty…
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Science Fiction
The Creator
Reviews The Creator It’s ironically apt that “The Creator,” about the potential and peril of artificial intelligence, merely resembles profound science fiction. Rich in atmosphere but short on substance, director and co-writer Gareth Edwards’ film has the look and tone of a serious, original work of art, but it ends up feeling empty as it recycles images and ideas from many influential predecessors. The movie is always spectacular to watch, thanks to dazzling visuals from cinematographers Greig Fraser (“Dune,” “The Batman,” Edwards’ “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”) and Oren Soffer. And the first hour or so offers some thrilling…
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Romance
Molli and Max in the Future
Reviews Molli and Max in the Future Throughout history, across centuries and cultures, human beings have been preoccupied with a few basic questions: Why am I here? What can I do to make a difference? Will anyone ever love me? (To be fair, for most of it finding enough to eat and not dying in a plague trumped all of that but stay with me here.) And, given the consistency with which we’ve collectively fretted over these problems, it follows that humans will still be obsessed with finding love and meaning 1,000 years from now. This is the basic idea…
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Mystery
A Haunting in Venice
Reviews A Haunting in Venice “A Haunting in Venice” is the best of Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot movies. It’s also one of Branagh’s best, period, thanks to the way Branagh and screenwriter Michael Green dismantle and reinvent the source material (Agatha Christie’s Hallowe’en Party) to create a relentlessly clever, visually dense “old” movie that uses the latest technology. Set mainly in a palazzo that seems as immense as Xanadu or Castle Elsinore (it’s a blend of actual Venice locations, London soundstages, and visual effects), the movie is threaded with intimations of supernatural activity, most of the action occurs during a tremendous thunderstorm, and the violence…
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Horror
Abigail
Reviews Abigail The trailer for “Abigail” tells you almost everything you need to know about the movie, a wacky high-concept horror thriller about a group of kidnappers who bite off more than they can chew when they unwittingly abduct a child-sized vampire ballerina. The vamp, played with some relish by Alisha Weir, only really comes alive when she’s leering at or stalking her prey. Genre fans will also spot some familiar faces among the movie’s ensemble cast, all of whom do their best with this tic-y, schtick-y material. They curse (enough to seem like they’re overcompensating for some things); they…
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Drama
The Human Surge 3
Reviews The Human Surge 3 We film lovers perpetually bang the drum about how cinema enables us to experience life from perspectives outside of our own. The medium reveals the world and those who inhabit it with singular precision as it observes who we are with a magnifying glass. But while plenty of titles accomplish this effect, none have done it quite like “The Human Surge 3,” the latest experimental work from Argentine visionary Eduardo Williams. Even more than its predecessor, 2016’s “The Human Surge” (there is no second chapter), this installment feels like seeing with different eyes: not just in…
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Documentary
Maestra
Reviews Maestra Cate Blanchett’s searing performance in “Tár” left such an indelible impression that, for a while in late 2022/early 2023, people actually thought Lydia Tár was a real person. She is not: The egotistical and tormented conductor is entirely fictional, the vivid creation of writer-director Todd Field. However, many passionate and dedicated female conductors exist, and director Maggie Contreras honors them with her documentary “Maestra.” Sadly, they are still very much in the minority; early in Contreras’ film, we learn that women make up less than 3 percent of all orchestral conductors worldwide. That’s where “La Maestra” comes in. It’s an annual competition for female conductors, and it aims to shine a light on their talents and boost their profile within these rarefied, male-dominated circles. In…
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Comedy
Longing
Reviews Longing “Longing” is a remake of an award-winning Israeli film by the same writer/director, Savi Gabizon. It could just as well be called “Grief,” or perhaps the Portuguese term “Saudade,” sometimes described as the feeling of loss for something you never had and never will. Richard Gere plays Daniel Bloch, a never-married, very successful businessman who rides in a limo, schedules his time tightly, and gives crisp directions to his administrative assistant. Anyone who starts out in so much control at the beginning of a film is destined to lose it very quickly and spend the rest of the…
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Amazon Prime
Dead Ringers
Reviews Dead Ringers The new Prime Video version of “Dead Ringers” works better once you divorce yourself from your memories of the excellent 1988 original. Sure, it’s still the story of gynecologist twin doctors and it maintains a healthy degree of the icy menace from the original, but it carves out a unique, confident identity of its own that more than justifies its existence. The 2023 “Dead Ringers” is far more than a mere replication of the source, taking inspiration from the book Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland to do what is very much its own thing. With three episodes…
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Action
Star Wars — Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Reviews Star Wars — Episode I: The Phantom Menace We are re-posting this review in honor of the re-release for the film’s 25th anniversary. This was originally published on May 17, 1999. If it were the first “Star Wars” movie, “The Phantom Menace” would be hailed as a visionary breakthrough. But this is the fourth movie of the famous series, and we think we know the territory; many of the early reviews have been blase, paying lip service to the visuals and wondering why the characters aren’t better developed. How quickly do we grow accustomed to wonders. I am reminded…
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Suspense
Twelve angry Russians
Reviews Twelve angry Russians One room, a dozen men “Twelve Angry Men” remains a monument of American filmmaking, and more than 50 years after it was made, its story is still powerful enough to inspire this Russian version — not a remake, but a new demonstration of a jury verdict arrived at only because one of the jurors was not angry so much as worried. “12” by Nikita Mikhalkov is a powerful new film inspired by a powerful older one. You know the story. A jury is sequestered. The men are hot and tired, and impatient to go home. It…
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Science Fiction
The Mill
Reviews The Mill Lil Rel Howery, who broke into big-screen acting as the comic relief in “Get Out” and has been expanding his on-screen prowess since, spends a good chunk of “The Mill” pushing a heavy stone in a small circle. That’s the main tension for this lackluster horror experiment from director Sean King O’Grady, which has Howery trying his hand at existential horror and leading a (mostly) one-man show. Also serving as a producer, it’s Howery’s take on cog-in-the-machine projects like “Severance” and “Squid Game,” though the promise stops right about there. Pushing this ancient grist mill is just another…
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