Review: You Should Have Left Should Have a Little More Depth
I think the message of writer/director David Koepp’s latest, You Should Have Left, is that in a perfect world, toxic men all get their comeuppance in the end. As we […]
Review: With Empathy and Sensitivity, Seahorse Intimately Follows a Trans Pregnancy
With certain species of seahorse, the males give birth; with others, they have both male and female reproductive organs; still others can change gender depending on reproductive needs. None of […]
Review: Words, Family and Grief at the Center of Charming Sometimes Always Never
On the shortlist of actors who I’ll watch in pretty much anything, Bill Nighy is near the top. Effortlessly charming and dryly funny, he consistently brings a warmth and wit […]
Review: A Film About Assisted Suicide, Exit Plan Is Surprisingly Uplifting
Wisely shedding its original Danish title Suicide Tourist, the second feature from director Jonas Alexander Arnby (When Animals Dream, a Cannes debut and one of my favorite films from Fantasia […]
Review: Pete Davidson Does the Work to Grow Up in The King of Staten Island
There’s a scene early on in the new Judd Apatow-directed The King of Staten Island in which the central character, Scott Carlin (SNL’s Pete Davidson), is explaining to his oldest […]
Review: Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods Is a Movie for This Moment
Timing is everything. Then again, great filmmaking is great filmmaking no matter the surroundings. But in the case of director Spike Lee’s latest, Da 5 Bloods, the film feels so […]
Review: The Candy Witch Might Only Be Good Because It’s So Bad
Oh, this is not good. But here’s the thing: once in a great while, I see something so bad that I want everyone else to see it to, just so […]
Review: You Don’t Nomi Makes a Study of Cult Favorite Showgirls
Although I am not of a mind that director Paul Verhoeven’s 1995 opus Showgirls is anything but watchable trash, there are many who believe it is a masterpiece—or at least […]
Review: Centered by a Riveting Performance, Shirley Plays Like an Experiment in Human Interactions
Elisabeth Moss is the rare actress who has made remarkable work in both television (“Mad Men,” “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Top of the Lake”) and film (Her Smell, Us, The Invisible […]
Review: Abel Ferrera and Willem Dafoe Re-Team for Delicate, Brutally Honest Tommaso
In his first feature since 2014’s controversial Pasolini, writer/director Abel Ferrara (Ms .45, King of New York, Bad Lieutenant) re-emerges with Tommaso, a work that is part biography, part fantasy, […]
Review: Sculptor Ursula Von Rydingvard’s History and Process Explored in Into Her Own
Too often in documentaries about artists, the focus rest heavily on the final product, and that’s often the case because the subject is deceased. But in director Daniel Traub’s deeply […]
Review: Dreamland Gets Bizarre, And That’s About It
Long have I been an admirer of Canadian filmmaker Bruce McDonald (Roadkill, Pontypool), who frequently takes his genre work into more surreal territory that sometimes threatens to/delights in dipping its […]