The familiar theme in OBSESSION is given a bracing re-boot by filmmaker Curry Barker. While the narrative addresses the oft considered dangers of getting exactly what you wish for, the subtext, that bursts through with the force of a spurting aorta, deals firmly with the insidious nature of male toxicity, female objectification, and what happens… Read More »
OVER YOUR DEAD BODY
Click here for the flashback interview with Jason Segel and James Ponsoldt for THE END OF THE TOUR. OVER YOUR DEAD BODY is a bristling black comedy that perfectly balances the genuine terror of psychopaths on the loose with the tragedy of a marriage gone very, very bad. And makes them both hilarious. Not an… Read More »
NORMAL
Bob Odenkirk has slipped comfortably into the category of unlikely action hero. Just an ordinary guy who, when thrown into extraordinary circumstances, rises to the occasion with a deadpan quip and a lethal ability to stay alive. And so it is with NORMAL, his follow-up to NOBODY and NOBODY 2, wherein he essays Ulysses, a… Read More »
LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY
It is only fair to give Lee Cronin points for wanting to expand the horizons of what a horror film about a mummy can be, but in LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY, that is pretty much the where originality ends. This overlong and gore-drenched exercise has a slap-dash quality to its writing coupled with putatively intelligent… Read More »
SEND HELP
The fruits of entitlement face off with workers controlling the means of production in Sam Raimi’s scathingly brilliant, and wickedly funny, take on gender politics and economic power, SEND HELP. Sure, we’ve seen this scenario before in THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON, SWEPT AWAY (the Wertmuller version, please), and most recently in TRIANGLE OF SADNESS, which owes… Read More »
CRIME 101
Click here for the flashback interview with Bart Layton for AMERICAN ANIMALS. Sometimes an ending can make or break a film. And so it is with CRIME 101, a thoughtful meditation on what happens when following the rules just doesn’t pay off. The payoff to a narrative that could have used some tightening is not… Read More »
GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON’T DIE
It is like cinema has burst forth into the full flower of distinctly new genre, this one about the zeitgeist’s paranoia about AI. Never mind it taking jobs. The very worst it can do is infantilize us into a state of perpetual psychological impotence. The emergence of this genre was a slow build from the… Read More »
WUTHERING HEIGHTS
Click here for the flashback interview with Emerald Fennell for SALTBURN. When Emily Bronte published WUTHERING HEIGHTS in 1847, it was hailed for its strangeness, its intensity, and its disquieting disquisition on obsession. Emerald Fennell, she of A PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN and SALTBURN, has taken Brontë’s novel and re-imagined it for modern audiences, recreating the… Read More »
THE MOMENT
THE MOMENT is wise enough to know that the standard for a satire about the music industry has already been set, and any attempts to impinge on SPINAL TAP’s brilliance is a fool’s errand at best. Hence, this deep dive into the Brat Summer of Charlie XCX goes in a different direction, not one that… Read More »
NO OTHER CHOICE
NO OTHER CHOICE is a refrain that will echo throughout Park Chan-wook’s film of the same name. It is more than just the desperation of a man fired from his job overseeing the manufacture of specialty papers at a paper mill. That is merely the framework for Park to contemplate the changing economy, the difference… Read More »
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 35
- Next Page »