Film Review: A Cure for Wellness, A Spectacular Thud
While director Gore Verbinski has true gifts for immersive production design (as he did in the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films) and just generally creeping us out (The […]
An Overview of the 2017 Oscar Nominated Short Films
Some of the finest directors working today cut their teeth on (and occasionally return to) short films. Look at any Pixar film today, and I promise you whoever directed it, […]
Film Review: Alone in Berlin, An Inspiring Rebellion
The 1947 novel “Every Man Dies Alone,” by author Hans Fallada, is best known for being one of the first anti-Nazi books published by a German writer after World War […]
Film Review: The Red Turtle, Magnificently Realized
The natural inclination after watching the Oscar-nominated, timeless, and slightly surrealistic The Red Turtle is to wonder what centuries-old mythology serves as its source material. In truth, this wordless story […]
Film Review: Fifty Shades Darker, Stupid and Loathsome
It’s true what they say: familiarity breeds contempt. And the more I get to know the characters in the Fifty Shades film, the more I find them stupid and loathsome. […]
Film Review – John Wick: Chapter 2, Unflinchingly Brutal
During the course of the first John Wick film (released in 2014), writer Derek Kolstad and first-time director Chad Stahelski (a former stunt man and coordinator) hinted at a vast […]
Film Review: The Lego Batman Movie, Is it Possible to Have Too Much of a Good Thing?
Sitting through the high-energy, brightly colored, million-jokes-per-minute The Lego Batman Movie, I was reminded of a question that I haven’t had the opportunity to ask myself in recent months: Is […]
Film Review: Saving Banksy, A Glimpse Into the Clandestine Grey Market of Purchasable Street Art
Although it doesn’t end the debate about whether street art/graffiti art/anonymous art is a fancy term for vandalism, the documentary Saving Banksy lays out the captivating story of a handful […]
Film Review: The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Richly Textured and Truly Terrifying
The richly textured and truly terrifying The Autopsy of Jane Doe has been impressing festival audiences for months now and has slowly been creeping its way across the country since […]
Film Review: The Salesman, A Methodical Examination of the Human Condition
Nominated for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, The Salesman reveals to us something that is rarely portrayed in movies from Iran: a detailed look at the country’s […]
Film Review: Julieta, Emotionally Gripping
Returning to his more plot-heavy yet still quite emotionally gripping style of filmmaking, writer-director Pedro Almodóvar (Talk to Her, Volver, All About My Mother) brings up Julieta, the complex, time-jumping […]
Film Review: I Am Not Your Negro, A Powerful Odyssey Into the Heart of Civil Rights
One of the many Oscar-nominated films in theaters right now is the documentary I Am Not Your Negro, a kind of personal history of the American black experience, as told […]