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’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 ›
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 ›
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 ›
When a film releases a new addition to a franchise a decade or more after the last entry, there’s good reason to be skeptical about the quality. Often, what worked before doesn’t connect due to changes in the cultural landscape,… Read More ›
Originating from the mind of Danielle Sanchez-Witzel (My Name Is Earl, Whitney) and featuring the direction of Miquel Arteta (Beatriz at Dinner, Duck Butter) comes Like A Boss, a love story about friendship, loyalty, and faith centered around two lifelong… Read More ›
In recent memory, there’s only one film franchise that seems to have unlocked the key to longevity after an extended break and that’s the Fast & Furious series. They found a way to revitalize the car drama by bringing back… Read More ›
There’s been a lot of trash tossed around on writer/director Rian Johnson since his Star Wars film hit theaters in 2017. It’s wonderful that audiences feel such ownership for a film series, but there comes a point where the community… Read More ›
It’s no secret that Suspiria is one of my favorite films of all time, with the 2018 remake just ever so slightly edging out the 1977 original thanks to its expansion on the film’s themes and plot to make something… Read More ›
There’s nothing more frustrating as a cinephile than a film with great ideas that don’t seem to coalesce in execution, where you can see all the pieces of a clever, engaging, thoughtful story, yet, for some reason, in completion, the… Read More ›
The moment the clock hits midnight on the last day of October, the speed with which Halloween is tossed in the bin and Christmas pops up is enough to disorient. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the first major studio Christmas… Read More ›
William Fichtner’s been working in television and film since 1989. He’s played a variety of characters in myriad of genres, but rarely does he get the kind of recognition that other actors working as hard as he and as talented… Read More ›
It used to be that everyone agreed that the Nazis were bad. It was one of the world’s universal truths, but unfortunately, because everything today has to be terrible and awful at all times, we’ve re-entered the age of neo-Nazism… Read More ›
A social and cultural shift took place shortly after Shaft hit theaters in 1971. Inspired by Ernest Tidyman’s novel and with influence from director Gordon Parks and actor Richard Roundtree as the titular character, Shaft became more than a household… Read More ›
There’s much about writer/director Aaron Schimberg’s (Go Down Death) Chained for Life that is striking. It’s the languid storytelling; the direction which shifts between extended still long takes and listless, flowing movements; and the endless sensation of a persistent dream-like… Read More ›
Horror is one of those genres that never goes out of style. It draws inspiration from the things which we fear collectively and gives it form. 1978’s Halloween was born out of the move from city centers to suburbia. 1954’s… Read More ›
Marc Webb’s directorial debut, 500 Days of Summer, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel in the titular roles, was lauded as one of the best films of 2009 and was almost unanimously praised by critics for its screenplay, lighthearted comedy,… Read More ›
It’s hard to truly comprehend just how much of an institution soccer (or “football” literally anywhere else but here, to which I will be referring to it as) is beyond the American borders. Throughout Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa, and… Read More ›
Ode to Joy, Jason Winer’s return to the cinema screen after 2008’s Arthur remake, takes the traditional romantic comedy story arc and adds a genetic disease into the mix. Unlike films that came before it, the mix of a humorous… Read More ›
Often in cinema, acclaim comes to non-disabled performers telling the stories of members of the disabled community. Jon Voight in Coming Home, Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, and Sean Penn in I Am Sam are just a few which come… Read More ›