Like a well-choreographed action sequence, movies have a lot of moving parts. While certain aspects of a film might not fall into place, the film may do so well in other areas that it turns out alright in the end…. Read More ›
Reviews
The exploration of social trust in Southeast Asian-inspired fantasy “Raya and the Last Dragon” hits close to home.
The latest Walt Disney Animation project, Raya and the Last Dragon, could not be coming at a more appropriate time. After years in development, the final version slated for theaters and Disney+ Premier Access on March 5th, 2021, is an… Read More ›
Director Natasha Kermani’s new film is both “Lucky” and good.
A lot of critics like to proclaim that women filmmakers are “on the rise” in Hollywood, but I find that wording to often feel degrading and lack accountability in the system. It’s not that women are suddenly deciding to become… Read More ›
Arrow Video’s HD restoration of director Park Chan-wook’s “JSA: Joint Security Area” is an opportunity to learn from the past.
One of the great things about boutique distributors like Criterion, Arrow, Vinegar Syndrome, and others is that whether a film is lost or beloved, they find new life via a new release. Even though the major studios are starting to… Read More ›
Keith Thomas’s phantasmagorical “The Vigil” explores the destructive terror of generational trauma.
When it comes to those who identify as Jewish, theirs is a life of constant reminders of threat, peril, and near-extinction several times over. Trying to explain holidays, for instance, to my eldest but still-quite-young son, is to find a… Read More ›
Ramin Bahrani’s “Chop Shop” offers a compelling look at the life of adolescent immigrants.
Two years after the release of Man Push Cart (2005), writer/director Ramin Bahrani followed it with Chop Shop (2007), a thematic continuation of the immigrant story he began with Ahmad the Pakistani food cart owner. Though actor Ahmad Razvi does… Read More ›
Ramin Bahrani’s melancholic “Man Push Cart” joins the Criterion Collection.
It’s interesting how things rarely change with time. There are incremental changes, sure, shifts in the way people dress or the meanings of words, but, largely, there are some things which remain. A sadness, a true melancholy, shrouds our existence,… Read More ›
Despite some muddled aspects, Lu Yang’s “A Writer’s Odyssey” will make you a believer.
A good marketing campaign will make clear what the product is about so that consumers won’t feel flummoxed about how to engage with the object. It’s partly why marketing happens, so that there’s a sense of familiarity. When it comes… Read More ›
Have a killer time at “Willy’s Wonderland.”
A silent lead. A gang of teenagers. A house of horrific animatronic monsters. With this trifecta, Willy’s Wonderland is either going to be the stuff of legends or nightmares. If you’re a fan of small budget horror films like Evil… Read More ›
The martial arts of “The Swordsman” cut through the narrative mire.
Consider the logline for Choi Jae-hoon’s feature film directorial debut The Swordsman (Geom-gaek) for a moment: a blinded swordsman comes out of hiding when his daughter is kidnapped by slave traders. With this type of description, one would presume a… Read More ›
“Prisoners of the Ghostland” brings new meaning to the phrase “balls out” in its post-apocalyptic action/adventure tale. [Sundance Film Festival]
A nameless stranger. A damsel in distress. A suicide mission that no one but the best can handle. These three requirements appear in countless stories, from gunslinger westerns of the East to the samurai tales of the West, each possessing… Read More ›
If you want to know “How It Ends,” begin with yourself. [Sundance Film Festival]
The latest project from Mister Lister Films is at once existential and profound, while completely self-indulgent. In their balance, both of these can be true, combining into a film that’s as heartbreaking as it is hilarious. Conceived, developed, and shot… Read More ›
Explore somewhere unexpected in time anomaly dramedy “The Map of Tiny Perfect Things.”
Books are a frequent source of mining in cinema. Sometimes their adaptations becomes something larger than possibly imagined (The Shawshank Redemption), while others support the notion that the imagination of the reader trumps anything celluloid can conjure (Artemis Fowl). Audiences… Read More ›
Armed with beautiful animation and a compelling story, “Jiang Ziya” is well worth the wait.
Originally slated for February 7th, 2020, the second-part of the Fengshen Cinematic Universe went into stasis until a brief theatrical rollout in October 2020. Now, though, nearly a year after it was to hit cinemaplexes, Jiang Ziya (also known as… Read More ›
Eco-disaster “Greenland” is a thrilling, emotionally engaging film that puts character over spectacle.
Every so often, Hollywood attempts to recreate the 1970s by releasing another high-concept disaster movie that vies to emulate the silly, yet thrilling fun of films like The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, and Earthquake, putting high-profile, ensemble casts in… Read More ›
Documentarian Rodney Ascher’s “A Glitch in the Matrix” explores the mystery of Simulation Theory. [Sundance Film Festival]
It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real, that is to say of an operation of deterring every real process via… Read More ›
“The Wanting Mare” is a paradox: breathtaking and rich, yet hollow and vacant.
To quote Keanu Reeves, “I love movies.” While he has the joy of making them and watching them, I love them for their transportive abilities. They can move you through time to see a version of what has been, expel… Read More ›
Costner and Lane reunite in the crime drama “Let Him Go,” now available on home video/streaming.
Even in the Before Times, it was nearly impossible to see every film that was released in a given year. You can certainly try, but there’re bound to be a few that you miss either by choice or circumstance. This… Read More ›
Writer/director Ben Hozie’s “PVT Chat” demonstrates admirable skill, creativity, and resourcefulness despite other shortcomings.
From writer and director Ben Hozie, PVT Chat is a story of urban loneliness and isolation along with lust and obsession. Peter Vack acts in the role of Jack, an online gambler who feels internally empty and without any clear… Read More ›
Charming, well-crafted, and funny, Adam Stovall’s romance/horror mashup “A Ghost Waits” is a delightfully spooky good time.
Adam Stovall’s micro-budget flick, A Ghost Waits, makes a pretty convincing argument that romance and horror can work really well together. Stovall doesn’t simply juxtapose the genres or jump back and forth between sweet and horrific moments. Instead, he takes… Read More ›