Directed and co-edited by Joe Zappa from a script he co-wrote with Sahil Sharma and co-editor Kip Bennett, the multi-character drama 75 explores Cincinnati’s devastating heroin epidemic in an unflinching manner, resulting in a very urgent, very emotionally resonant film. Pivoting on the lives of a car-crash victim, a housewife, and two teenagers who are…
Directed with his usual brand of cold, clinical detachment, Steven Soderbergh’s riveting virus thriller Contagion is a thinking person’s horror film, a genre piece that defies genre in more than a few ways, never giving into cheap sensationalism or resorting to hackneyed plot twists. With basically everyone in Hollywood in a juicy supporting role, Soderbergh…
This movie got buried. Not sure why – it’s f**king awesome! Here’s our Vox Lux review. Written and directed with serious aesthetic panache by Brady Corbet (from a story he co-wrote with Mona Fastvold), this is the grittier side of A Star is Born, and far more compelling and bold from where I sit. The…
Julianne Moore reminds us why she’s one of the best actresses alive in Gloria Bell, the wonderful new film from director Sebastian Lelio, who co-wrote the intimate and thoroughly believable screenplay with Alice Johnson Boher. The film examines painful and harsh truths about relationships and the trust that people put into one another, and how…
Observe and Report is one of the funniest films of the last 10 years. I totally understand that comedy is the most subjective genre, and some people won’t find this film as funny as I do. It’s some sort of strange, transgressive, unhinged piece of work that despite its crude surface exterior, has something perversely…
Currently streaming on Netflix, Enemy, the glorious head-scratcher from Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Incendies, Sicario, Arrival, Blade Runner 2049), is a twisted mystery with all sorts of philosophically loaded implications. Is it a sly version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Is it a metaphysical exploration of divided souls hovering in a unique state of otherworldly…
Not only is Jonah Hill one of the funniest people on the planet with the most impeccable sense of comedic timing (and a damn fine dramatic screen presence when he wants to get serious), he can now be considered a smart and stylish filmmaker, as his writing/directing debut, Mid90s, is 85 minutes of pure awesomeness….
Green Book is a warm and entertaining Hollywood melodrama that tells an uplifting story despite focusing on some very upsetting racial discrimination, but what’s likely even more upsetting, is how the themes that this film touches upon are still hyper relevant today, despite the narrative being set in the early 1960’s. Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala…
Suddenly, everyone on the planet begins to have a meltdown of their collective senses. Everything that we take for granted, every single day, gets thrown into chaos; unexpected fits of rage, compulsive eating, spontaneous deafness, loss of taste, and sudden blindness. Directed with extreme care and control by the eclectic filmmaker David Mackenzie (Starred Up,…
Absolutely chilling – I’ve seen three episodes of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace and I can’t wait to see the next six. Slickly put together by executive producer Ryan Murphy (who directed the very stylish pilot), I can’t imagine it was mentally healthy for Golden Globe winner Darren Criss (terrifying in a…
Absolutely wild stuff. I’m no major mark for horror movies, and I’m not sure I fully “got” each plot development as it naturally unfolded, but Luca Guadagnino’s ultra-stylish re-imagining of Dario Argento’s iconic horror film Suspiria is a bloody blast of surreal and creepy imagery. It also serves as a fully-loaded thematic exploration of motherhood,…
I’ve become something of a regular customer with Mathew Cullen’s vibrant and ambitious director’s cut film version of the celebrated British cult novel London Fields. Over multiple viewings, I’ve been able to pull something new and interesting from the experience, especially on a visual level; London Fields is jam-packed with verbal and pictorial information…
Glenn Close is phenomenal as a woman who has spent 40 years living in the shadows of her mega-successful husband (Jonathan Pryce, terrific) whose prolific literary career has just netted him a Nobel Prize for literature. Off to Sweden they go to collect his trophy, with years of hostility and resentment boiling to the surface,…
A bit too long-winded but still quite entertaining and definitely constructed with considerable narrative skill and cinematic style, Bad Times at the El Royale is a stylish neo-noir mystery that benefits from a great soundtrack, terrific production design (Marin Whist), and slick cinematography (Seamus McGarvey), with strong performances from a cool ensemble. The less you…
Karyn Kusama’s hardcore police drama Destroyer, from a jumbled yet effective script by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, allowed Nicole Kidman to get down and dirty as she’s never been on-screen, with the veteran actress dropping a studied performance that fits right in line with the demands of the cynical, modern day, cop movie formula,…
Vice, the spectacular new film from writer/director Adam McKay, is such a sucker-punch that you can feel the sly presence of everyone involved who collaborated on this motion picture, in every frame. It’s big, it’s sprawling, it’s wickedly clever, and it’s extremely funny. But, what’s most disturbing is that at no point should you ever…
