With any kind of satire, there’s a balance that must be struck in order for it to achieve its goal, especially when dealing with material that’s sensitive in nature. Most recently, audiences can look to the strangely polarizing response to… Read More ›
If you’ve ever dabbled in the morbid or macabre, then chances are you’ve come across the works of H.P. Lovecraft. His tales of the strange, the weird, the supernatural, and the horrific have lingered in the cultural zeitgeist with the… Read More ›
If you’re still looking for romance the week after Valentine’s Day, or perhaps if you’re desperate for something warm and colorful to beat the winter blahs, Masaaki Yuasa’s new anime feature, Ride Your Wave, might be just the pick-me-up you… Read More ›
While being an allegory but also trying to be comedic, Kill the Monsters is an odd, bold, and awkward tale about three young men who share a strong relationship and travel all over American searching for physical and emotional healing. Truth… Read More ›
A story of any kind — adaptation, original, or otherwise — that features an animal, usually sparks one specific question: does the animal make it?! To quell this particular concern, the dog in director Chris Sanders’s (How to Train Your… Read More ›
Eddie Marsan is an actor whose face you might recognize, but he’s not at the level of someone like a Russell Crowe or Gary Oldman. Over the history of his career, Marsan has popped up in smaller roles in some… Read More ›
Writer/director Stella Meghie’s (Everything, Everything) new film, The Photograph, is a drama/romance depicting two love stories (one in the past, one in the present) connected by a picture. That description just scratches the surface of Meghie’s tale which examines not… Read More ›
When it comes to the new world of film production, the world has been seeing a lot of big name companies saying “screw it” and making their own films rather than sitting around while putting out other companies’ films on… Read More ›
Prior to hearing about the 2019 limited theatrical release of director Shinsuke Sato’s (Inuyashiki) Kingdom, I had no awareness of the 2012 anime or the 2006 manga. Coming into the film blind, I only knew that the story involved treachery,… Read More ›
There’s something about a wedding that feels oddly restorative. Symbolically, it’s a new beginning, one in which two families are coming together to form something new, something larger, and, potentially, something stronger than what was before. This romantic notion of… Read More ›
Horror as a means of directly confronting human trauma is not a new concept that suddenly sprang out of nowhere with Hereditary. If anything, it’s arguably the basis for all horror dating back to the very beginning. What’s better for… Read More ›
The last time audiences saw Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, she was being freed from Black Gate prison by The Joker (Jared Leto) in David Ayers’s Suicide Squad. That was in 2016 when hopes were high that a group of DC… Read More ›
There’s something about Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel The Shining that’s gripped audiences for nearly four decades despite factors which one might presume would detract from its popularity. Kubrick quite famously tortured Shelley Duvall on set to a… Read More ›
Never forget. These are the words that every Jew learns at a young age in our modern era. They signify a persistent vigilance and the vigorous act of remembrance. It is not enough to know that a thing happened, it… Read More ›
With just one other feature film under his belt (Closeness, 2017), Russian director Kantemir Balagov takes on a challenge with his second feature, Beanpole. The film packs a complex story of female friendship and desire that requires precise characterization and… Read More ›
According to actor/writer/director Edward Norton, his relationship with Jonathan Lethem’s 1999 novel Motherless Brooklyn began before the book hit shelves. As he explains in the featurette “Making-Of: Edward Norton’s Methodical Process,” he was tipped off by a friend about the… Read More ›
Short films don’t get the wider credit that they should get. Anyone can make a short film and post it on YouTube, hoping someone will find it and love it, but short films have an advantage where most Hollywood/studio released… Read More ›
When it comes to Guy Ritchie films, the mileage varies depending on where you were introduced. If you came in during the era of his early works, specifically his first two features Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and… Read More ›
I have a small connection with Richard Stanley which makes viewing Color Out of Space feel like a strangely touching moment. Stanley’s new film, based on the short story by H.P. Lovecraft, is his first feature film to be produced… Read More ›
1994 low budget comedy Clerks is writer/director Kevin Smith’s first film and the foundation for a 25-year strong series of films, comics, a cartoon, and a cartoon television show that have entertained literal generations of audiences. Dubbed the “View Askewniverse”… Read More ›