"’ll give “The Threesome” credit for this: I have never seen a rom-com—or any movie for that matter—set in Arkansas. This is not like “Annie Hall” or “La La Land,” where the glamorous cities on the coast become a main character..."
"While on first glance, this is one of Panahi’s weaker films, there’s still evident thought put into the deployment of theatrical artifice. The film pointedly alternates between urban neorealism...and the abstracted stage of the..."
"...a reinterpretation for a new generation, showing that while time turns things don’t change too much. As the film unfolds, its secret societies, larger-than-life characters, and cartoonish grandiosity give way to a fable steeped in realism..."
"In “The History of Sound,” silence is crucial. The moments where nothing is said far outweigh the ones filled with blathering, both in screentime and importance..."
"When I was twelve, I went to see “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” on Broadway, and then again the next year. I was at the peak of my “Harry Potter” phase, somewhat obsessed with Daniel Radcliffe..."
"Operating simultaneously as urban revenge thriller, space opera, and a Japanese version of a wuxia flick, Toyoda treats each genre vernacular as part of the same overarching prison. Attempting to liberate the film from narrative, he..."
"Despite the references to real-world tensions, “QueerPanorama” exists in a punishingly claustrophobic headspace. This is most obvious in the barren abstraction of Cheung’s apartment, where Cheung’s arrested development is on..."
"Grief is a strange thing. It can have you crying one minute and laughing the next, all in between shouting matches over who gets to inherit Grandma’s underwear. For Roman (Dylan O’Brien), it’s doubly strange, considering he looks exactly like the deceased..."
""28 Years Later" delves into something more profound; it operates more in the realm of John Huston and Billy Wilder, where world-building emerges organically from character development, enhanced by the director's signature techniques."
""Wick is Pain," settles all that noise into a straightforward documentary about the labor of love and behind-the-scenes feuds that turned a little indie action film into another conglomerate film universe with its numerous spin-offs."
"Ari Aster's “Eddington” arrives as a fever dream of American paranoia, where Amazon delivery trucks become harbingers of doom and COVID masks transform into tribal markings. Set within a heightened, hyperreal version of..."
"The Pre-Raphaelites have always moved me deeply, especially their way of blending raw emotion with detail. Sir John Everett Millais’ “Ophelia” painting embodies this perfectly. The painting is a symphony of symbolism: the poppies tangled in her dress, the..."
"Every moment of the fourth-wall interview is just a reminder of the laziness of “The Alto Knights,” when it so desperately wants to be in the same conversation as Scorsese, Coppola, Spielberg, Eastwood, and Miller’s late-career achievements, making it..."
"Melodrama gives way to domestic horror in Nicholas Ray’s phenomenal “Bigger Than Life,” a movie of feverish, boldly menacing visual style. Like Sam Fuller’s “The Naked Kiss,” the film points ahead to David Lynch’s surrealist suburban nightmares..."
"The film's most significant shortcoming lies in its ultra-glossy digital cinematography from the usually reliable Seamus McGarvey. The switch from celluloid to digital results in a loss of the grime and texture that made the first film so memorably..."
"...14 years later, "Final Destination" returns to claim a new group of fodder when they inexplicably escape their predetermined deaths—except this time, these characters were supposed to die before they were ever born."
""The Phoenician Scheme" is at its best when it takes advantage of the relationship between Anderson’s meticulous, dioramic frames and the weight of a guilty conscience. This is Anderson’s most self-critical film in..."
"Structurally, “Tides” takes the format of Jia’s recent melodramas “Mountains May Depart” and “Ash is Purest White.” Split into three sections, each set during a different time period and typified by a different era of Jia’s filmmaking, Jia stitches a..."
"At what point do we say enough is enough? Should we have stamped our collective feet down after “Cinderella,” Disney’s first of their live action remakes that kicked off a wave of redos? Or was it the soulless “The Lion King” that should have..."
"Love in the time of Tinder is hard. Well, it’s probably always been hard, but now—despite the legions of profiles beckoning for us to swipe right—it’s never been easier to share how hard it is..."
"Alien" is deceptively simple. Unknown creature. Trapped crew. Perfect organism. Yet decades later, nothing touches its legacy. The creature design, the characters, the world – all untouchable. This isn't just a horror film; it's THE benchmark that..."
"Omar Sy and Kerry Washington do what they can with the material, occasionally finding moments to shine. But the script can't figure out how to balance their dual lives as reformed killers and devoted parents, leaving them stranded in..."
""Die Hard" didn't just spawn sequels—it birthed an entire subgenre. For decades, studios have been chasing that Nakatomi Plaza lightning in a bottle, with results ranging from memorable to instantly forgettable. Even today, the formula's persistence makes..."
