What to Watch on the Small Screen: December 2018
December is here, and with it the inevitable onslaught of can’t-feel-your-face-anymore winter weather. If you don’t have the stamina to go outside and brave the trip to your nearest movie […]
Review: Parenting Drama Weightless Lacks Any Heft At All
The aptly titled Weightless is all about an aimless man named Joel (Alessandro Nivola) who meets and must parent his emotionally damaged, 10-year-old son Will (newcomer Eli Haley), who has […]
Review: A Sublimely Entertaining Game of One-Up(Wo)manship in The Favourite
History has rarely been so playfully nasty as it is in the latest from director Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth, The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer). Set in the court […]
Review: South Korea’s Oscar Entry, Burning Is a Lyrical, Mysterious Epic
A great deal of Burning, the latest work from South Korean master Lee Chang-dong (Poetry, Secret Sunshine), concerns what is real and what is wishful thinking/frustration-born fantasy in the mind […]
Review: Smart, Funny and Inventive, Ralph Breaks the Internet is an Animated Sequel Worth the Wait
Something interesting happened on the way to this six-years-in-the-making sequel to the hit animated film Wreck-It Ralph. Ralph Breaks the Internet directors Rich Moore and co-writer Phil Johnston made an […]
Review: At Eternity’s Gate Sends Us Into Vincent van Gogh’s Artistic Mind
Biopics about the painter Vincent van Gogh are so plentiful—including last year’s beautifully animated work Loving Vincent—they are almost their own genre, but I’m not sure an actual, established artist […]
Review: Creed II Is a Sequel with a Lot to Live Up To, and It Mostly Does
Perhaps a lesser film than its predecessor but still quite good, Creed II is more like the Rocky movies we remember. It grasps on more desperately to boxing movie conventions […]
Interview: Ralph Breaks the Internet Filmmakers on the Wait for the Sequel and That Impressive Princess Scene
The reason it took six years to get a sequel made to the highly successful Wreck-It Ralph is simple: director Rich Moore and co-screenwriter Phil Johnson got a little sidetracked on […]
Interview: Filmmaker Sean Anders on How His Own Adoption Experience Influenced Instant Family
The cynical among us (you know who you are) will view a movie like Instant Family and think it’s some sort of propaganda material, encouraging selfish would-be parents to consider adopting or […]
Interview: Jason Reitman on Making The Front Runner Like It’s the 1970s, and the Media Now and Then
Although many may not remember the details, Gary Hart’s 1988 presidential campaign was something of a milestone in both politics and the way the media investigates candidates’ private lives. Hart […]
Review: Searching for Ingmar Bergman Delights in Discovering an Icon of Auteur Cinema
Last year, I had a bit of an adventure as an extra on a movie set. And not just any movie set, either. I ended up as an extra in […]
Review: The Dark Marks a Lyrical, Moving Horror Debut for First-Time Filmmaker
This one took me completely by surprise, and I primarily watched it because I was starving for a horror movie in a particularly dry season. Marking the directorial debut of […]