Review: Let the Spirit – and Aretha – Move You in Amazing Grace
If I have to convince you to go see this documentary chronicling the two Aretha Franklin performances at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in the Watts neighborhood of Los […]
Review: Laika Continues a Strong Run with Adventurous, Friendly Missing Link
As far as animation houses go, the stop-frame animation loyalists at Laika have a perfect record in my book, with a run that includes ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the […]
Review: A Gritty, Subversive Re-Imagining of Hellboy
You don’t have to like one cinematic version of Hellboy over the other. I wildly adore the two previous films directed by Guillermo del Toro. They are inventive, stylish, beautiful […]
Review: The Gospel of Eureka Provides a Welcome Lesson in Community
At just an hour and 15 minutes long, The Gospel of Eureka manages to tell quite a story about a small town in Arkansas that celebrates pageantry and panache in equal […]
Review: Knife+Heart is a Pulsing, Captivating ’70s-Era Slasher
Knife + Heart, a new French film with a decidedly retro vibe, is not for the faint of…well, the faint of heart. Set in 1979 and starring Vanessa Paradis as […]
Review: Love and the Passage of Time in Masterful Ash Is Purest White
There is such haunting truth-telling about the way in which certain fated relationships work in the latest from the great Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke, Ash Is Purest White, that you’re […]
Review: The Highwaymen Is Perfectly OK for a Movie Night In
In an alternate version of the current cinematic landscape, one where a film’s best chance at finding an audience is strictly through a theatrical release, a film like The Highwaymen might just […]
Review: 1977’s Between the Lines Features an Impressive Cast in Workplace Drama
This lesser-known curiosity from one of the guiding female voices in independent film in the 1970s and 1980s, Joan Micklin Silver (Hester Street, Crossing Delancy), 1977’s Between the Lines is […]
Review: A Morality Play At Sea in Styx
The idea behind the German production Styx is so deceptively simple, and therefore, so highly complex and loaded with relevant ideas, that it’s awe-inspiring how it all comes together. The […]
Review: A Fascinating, Frustrating Portrait of Politics in The Brink
Coming on the heals of American Dharma, director Errol Morris’s documentary profile on political strategist Steve Bannon, it would seems strange that yet another Bannon doc is making its way […]
Review: Stephen King’s Pet Sematary Gets A New, Scary Adaptation
One of the problems the makers of the latest adaptation of author Stephen King’s Pet Sematary (and it’s not really a problem at all) is that most people going to […]
Review: Shazam! Injects a Bolt of Electricity into DC Comics Universe
For those who thought Aquaman was still too dark and scary for their delicate sensibilities, the latest from the DC Comics cinematic universe, Shazam!, should be enough of a safe […]