There are several volumes of sophisticated feminist theory at work in the live-action version of MULAN, but, trust me, they are wholly in the service of a first-rate action-adventure film that puts characters ahead of spectacle. Director Niki Caro has created a film that is intense, compelling, and entirely entertaining, while Liu Yifei as the… Read More »
TESLA
Quiet in tone, and visually arresting, TESLA tells the story of a man whose perspective had only the most tangential relationship to that of the mere mortals who surrounded him. Michael Almereyda film echoes that with a high-minded tone-poem that mixes fact and fiction to achieve an emotional and intellectual, if not factual, truth. The… Read More »
RADIOACTIVE
RADIOACTIVE tells a story of scientific curiosity in a world where personality skews the perception of the work itself, and politics are never far from the equation. It lays bare not just the injustice of that, but also its stupidity
7500
7500, the code used for hijackings, takes the all-too-familiar tropes of a terrorist hijacking and reframes them with a harrowing story that unfolds in real time. By removing any hint of sensationalism from the events, filmmaker Patrick Vollrath focuses on the moment-to-moment uncertainty of people ripped in an instant from the security of their familiar… Read More »
LAST CALL
LAST CALL uses what at first seems like a gimmick, two people on a split screen filmed at separate locations in one take in real time, to tell a quietly wrenching precis on loneliness and the need to connect in the 21st-century where access is immediate via phone or internet, but real connection is rare.… Read More »
BLOODSHOT
Where to begin with BLOODSHOT, a derivative lump of lethargy that taints the thrill of the plot twist, and renders an action sequence in plummeting elevators dully predictable? Right down to the quips. Powered solely by Vin Diesel’s star power, it is overwritten and under cogitated, with special effects that aren’t. Diesel is still a… Read More »
JOKER
It is, perhaps, a truism that every generation gets the Batman or Superman that they need/deserve. With Todd Philips’ JOKER, though, we get more than a cultural gloss of the zeitgeist. We get a funhouse mirror that lurks deep within a house of horrors that is an extrapolation of what happens when the 1% of… Read More »
1917
There is a moment during Sam Mendes’ masterpiece of a film, 1917, where a character is permitted to remove himself from the overwhelming, unrelenting now, and process both the facts of what he’s been through and the conjecture about what he’s about to face. During this moment, George MacKay, playing the appropriately named Will, gives… Read More »
RICHARD JEWELL
RICHARD JEWELL certainly has the makings of a compelling, infuriating cautionary tale about the abuse of power, but Clint Eastwood’s homage to the common man chooses instead to be a screed against ambitious women and government agents at the mercy of their hormones. Everything that ensues after Jewell finds a bomb planted at Centennial Part… Read More »
THE CURRENT WAR: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT
THE CURRENT WAR: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT is an elegantly realized intellectual thriller which considers not only the eternal struggle between art and commerce, but also the effect of personalities on inventing the future. In this case, three visionaries, Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and Nikola Tesla. Each with a particular kind of genius, each with idiosyncrasies… Read More »
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