We learn many things in M. Night Shyamalan’s GLASS. We learn that the Philadelphia police department has an abysmal response time. We learn that a fully staffed psychiatric hospital has only two orderlies its employ. And we learn that James McAvoy still cries more manfully than any other actor working today. Possibly ever. He is… Read More »
THE NUN
The decline and fall of franchises is a phenomenon that is all too common, and yet still heartbreaking in its own way. For every James Bond or Star Wars, there are countless other series that started strong, usually with a film that was a one-off, the success of which led to studio bean-counters to push… Read More »
HEREDITY
The only thing wrong with HEREDITY is that is bound to spawn increasingly inferior installments in a new franchise that is as inevitable as its protagonists’ descent into madness. That aside, this deeply disturbing horror film does not need the supernatural in order to worm its way into the darkest recesses of your psyche where… Read More »
A QUIET PLACE
Why lob blood and guts when a lamp being knocked over can make you jump out of your seat?
UNSANE
For me, the single most disconcerting image in a Steven Soderbergh film is from CONTAGION. It’s not a panorama of people dying from the pandemic that threatens to end civilization as we know it, instead it’s the silent, dispassionately clinical shot of Gwyneth Paltrow’s head being autopsied. There are people I know who reference the… Read More »
MOM AND DAD
The refrain of “I’ll kill you” or “My mom (dad) is gonna kill me” are a familiar part contemporary familiar discourse in even the most loving of homes. Writer/director Brian Taylor has taken that commonplace and spun a tale that is both wickedly twisted and unnervingly satisfying. The exactly proportions of those two feelings may… Read More »
MOTHER!
From his debut feature, PI, Darren Aronofsky’s work has never strayed far from the metaphysical. There was the overt Kabbalah that infused NOAH, and even REQUIEM FOR A DREAM was as much about the psychic destruction of souls as it was about any physical degradation of the protagonists. And so it is with MOTHER!, an… Read More »
IT
The evil that lurks in the sewers beneath Derry, Maine, has nothing on the evil lurking in the homes of that community.
DAVE MADE A MAZE
The search for meaning has never been more puckishly considered than in DAVE MADE A MAZE, an ingenious horror-fantasy-comedy of existential angst. Rife with metaphor and deadly origami come to life, it finds the time-space continuum falling victim to one man’s determination to finally finish something he started, and explores the deadly results of leaving… Read More »
THE DARK TOWER
Intermittently garrulous, yet generally somnambulant, THE DARK TOWER disappoints on almost every level. Based on the Stephen King series of the same name, the cinematic version blows a kiss to the novels, then goes its own way plot-wise for reasons that defy explanation, unless it’s a scheme similar to the one in Mel Brooks’ classic… Read More »
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 13
- Next Page »