HOUSE OF GUCCI is a ramshackle accretion of muddled plots studded with oddly incoherent character development and performances that range from stock (Al Pacino) to enigmatic (Adam Driver). This overlong effort takes a tale of sex, money, and power among the super rich and renders it into a dull slog brightened only by Lady Gaga’s… Read More »
THE CARD COUNTER
With THE CARD COUNTER, writer/director Paul Schraeder returns to his favorite themes of sin and redemption. This is no tidy tale of a fall from grace precipated by a rash decision or a moment of weakness. We have at the center a flawed man with dark impulses that he cannot control once they have been… Read More »
THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE
For all the meticulous detail in THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE about the early life of Tammy Faye Bakker, this biopic about the rise of fall of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker has an ending that is curiously sparse. It’s not just Tammy Faye’s second marriage to Roe Messner that is erased, though he does… Read More »
NINE DAYS
With NINE DAYS, we are offered a metaphysical cosmology that reconciles why there is evil in the world with a need to believe that someone or something, somewhere, is watching over us and cares about what he or she or it sees. It is a devilishly complicated question, but filmmaker Edson Oda tackles it with… Read More »
CANDYMAN
CANDYMAN wants to do more than creep you out with mere gore. To that end, this sequel to the original does more than ignore the three subsequent films in that previous franchise, though it does, like those other films, drench the screen in blood from time to time. Here, though, the true horror that it… Read More »
REMINISCENCE
There is a persistent torpor to REMINISCENCE, a film that tries to be many things and fails for the most part. Rife with visuals that evoke a disquieting dreamlike state, the story, an ersatz neo-noir set mostly between sunset and sunrise, drones along with the cinematic equivalent of a mosquito’s interminable buzz on a humid… Read More »
CRYPTOZOO
CRYPTOZOO is a touching throwback to the animated films of the late 60s and early 70s in both style and in substance. Set in that time frame, it is full of idealism about the possibilities of human society and wonder at the natural world, while also tempered with poignant cynicism about both. Writer/director Dash Shaw… Read More »
JOHN AND THE HOLE
JOHN AND THE HOLE is a film that demands that its audience draw its own conclusions rather than spell out what has driven a 13-year-old boy to trap his family in an abandoned bunker. Dancing adroitly between reality and metaphor, this psychologically disturbing story is told in muted colors and hushed tones, the better to… Read More »
JOE BELL
A key moment in the fact-based JOE BELL comes early one as the titular character (Mark Wahlberg), a working-class man from a small town in Oregon, is told by his adolescent son, Jadin (Reid Miller) that he is being bullied at school for being gay. It’s two revelations, and Joe doesn’t miss a beat telling… Read More »
BLACK WIDOW
Braids, French and other, loom large in the visuals of BLACK WIDOW, and it is an apt metaphor. The ultra-femininity of long, flowing hair rigorously trained into orderly rows of tightly disciplined tresses echoes the rigorous training given to ultra-feminine assassin-turned-Avenger Natasha Romanoff, the eponymous super-heroine in this her first spinoff from the Marvel Universe.… Read More »
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 43
- Next Page »