Review: The Brutality and Vulnerability of Conscripted Service in 1980s-Set Moffie
Back when the Apartheid regime was alive and well in South Africa in the 1980s, any boy over the age of 16 was made to complete two years of military […]
Review: Ben Falcone’s Thunder Force Only Forces Melissa McCarthy into Tired, Unfunny Gags
Can Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone just stop working together? It’s not that their films together just aren’t very good (Superintelligence, Life of the Party, The Boss, Tammy); it’s that […]
Review: Teens Discover the Human Condition on a Journey to Outer Space in Sci-Fi Thriller Voyagers
On the one hand, the latest from writer/director Neil Burger (Limitless, The Illusionist, Divergent), Voyagers, is a science fiction story that exists in a familiar scenario—the earth is soon going […]
Review: Oscar-Nominated The Man Who Sold His Skin Delivers Affecting, if Uneven, Political and Cultural Critiques
In many ways, Kaouther Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated The Man Who Sold His Skin defies categorization. Set within a very recent timeline during which Syria’s war-torn cities purged millions of refugees […]
Review: A 1970s-Set Creep-Fest, The Power Finds Scares in Shadows and Trauma
From writer/director Corinna Faith comes The Power, a mid-1970s-set creep-fest about nurse trainee Val (Rose Williams) who arrives at a dilapidated East London hospital on her first day in the […]
Review: Oscar-Nominated Shorts Glimpse Promising, Innovative and Informative Filmmaking
Though the Oscars ceremony celebrating films released in 2020 was pushed back to late April, 2021 due to the pandemic, everything else about the annual Academy Awards is much the […]
Review: A Comedy of Absurd, Dysfunctional Relationships, French Exit Features a Divine Michelle Pfeiffer
Based on Patrick DeWitt’s 2018 novel of the same name, French Exit (which he adapted for the screen) is a film that, in some ways, has no real right to exist. […]
Review: The Unholy, with Cheap Scares and Muddled Story, Doesn’t Live Up to Its Promising Premise
There are times when the premise of a film is far better than its execution; this is particularly true in the horror genre, where great ideas often go ridiculously off […]
Review: Concrete Cowboy Explores the Real-Life Culture of Black Urban Cowboys with Just Enough Heart and Inspiration
Fifteen-year-old Cole (Caleb McLaughlin) gets into another fight at his Detroit high school and is on the verge of being expelled when his single mother decides she’s had enough. Initially, […]
Review: A Suffocating, Chaotic, Awkward and Hilarious Shiva Baby Marks a New Filmmaker’s Impressive Debut
An expansion on the short film of the same name she made in 2018, Emma Seligman’s feature film debut, Shiva Baby, marks an exciting and promising (not to mention hilarious) entry […]
Review: Godzilla vs. Kong Brings Epic, Splashy Action and Even Some Surprises to the Monsterverse
The current rundown that makes up Warner Bros.’s “Monsterverse” franchise has always felt a bit like it’s flying by the seat of its pants in terms of connecting the storylines […]
Interview: Violation Filmmakers on Their Feature Film Debut, the Personal Nature of Abuse and Making Movies with Heightened Realism
Since its debut last September as part of the Toronto International Film Festival, the horrifying drama Violation has been one of the most talked about and debated works about the […]