If Beale Street Could Talk, which serves as Barry Jenkins’ confident follow-up to his Oscar winning Moonlight, is a bittersweet romantic drama that further underscores the racial divide in America, whether it be from decades previous, or right now in the moment. The film takes a perceptive (and saddening) look at how race defines everything…
I’m always intrigued by the prospect of a new film from Gus Van Sant, and his darkly comedic 2018 indie Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot is a further reminder of how natural and versatile he is as a storyteller. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, the film is based on the life of John Callahan,…
Juliet, Naked is the sort of traditional and appealing romantic comedy that has been entertaining audiences for years. We’ve seen the formula before and we roughly know the ultimate outcome; it’s the journey of getting there that has to be unique enough to make it all worthwhile, and that’s why this movie succeeds. Directed by…
If there was ever a film that demanded to be seen by as many people as possible, it would be Blindspotting, the absolutely ferocious debut from director Carlos Lopez Estrada and the supremely talented writing and acting team of Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal, who have teamed up to create something strikingly alive and volatile,…
While certainly a good movie, I was a bit disappointed in Beautiful Boy, from director Felix Van Groeningen, who co-wrote the script with Luke Davies, and which serves as a dual-adaptation of two memoirs, written by the father and son portrayed by Steve Carell and Timothee Chalamet, who both delivered strong performances. The film centers…
Lucas Hedges is a force to be reckoned with in Ben is Back, the new film from his father, Peter Hedges (Dan in Real Life, Pieces of April, About a Boy. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape), who wrote the dark and introspective original screenplay, and had the creative nerve to cast his son in the lead…
What Outlaw King lacks in narrative freshness it more than compensates for with its authentic-feeling sense of gritty verisimilitude. Directed by David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water, Perfect Sense, Young Adam, Starred Up), the film was co-written by Mackenzie, Mark Bomback, David Harrower, James MacInnes, and Bathsheba Doran, and essentially picks up where Braveheart left…
Everyone knows that your eighth grade school year typically sucks for any number of reasons, and this has to be one of the best explorations of middle school that I’ve seen on screen, certainly right up there with Welcome to the Dollhouse, even if those two films couldn’t be any more different in style or…
Filmmaker John Curran just can’t get a lucky break. He’s a very intelligent storyteller with a unique sense of style, with underrated directorial credits that include The Painted Veil, Stone, We Don’t Live Here Anymore, and Tracks. His films are aimed at adults and likely aren’t seen as “fashionable” in today’s slam-bang entertainment landscape. His…
Paul Greengrass doesn’t mess around. He’s incapable of crafting anything less than a fully absorbing piece of cinema, and his unflinching new Netflix film, 22 July, takes a sobering and disturbing look at one of the deadliest mass-shootings to ever take place, focusing on the 2011 Norway attacks at the hands of a unrepentant right-wing…
Directed with unflinching honesty and total dedication to the inherent ugliness of the story by Jean-Stephane Sauvaire, the film charts the punishing exploits of Billy Moore, an English boxer who got arrested while living in Thailand, and was then locked up in the country’s most notorious penitentiary (the film was also shot on location in…
Private Life is the funniest film I have seen so far in 2018. This painfully hilarious new movie, which just debuted on Netflix, is the work of writer/director Tamara Jenkins (1998’s The Slums of Beverly Hills, 2007’s The Savages), and it’s an absolute crime for cinema lovers that it takes this long for her to…
Leave No Trace is a remarkable motion picture and I wasn’t prepared for its cumulative emotional power, especially during the shattering final act. Theatrically released earlier this summer and now available on Blu-ray/DVD and via various streaming providers, co-writer and director Debra Granik (Down to the Bone, Winter’s Bone) has crafted a beautifully simple and…
Overall, I definitely enjoyed this ruthless and humorously vulgar actioner, but the final moments left me scratching my head – they had no ending and I don’t like it when movies can’t tell a complete story, especially when there’s absolutely no guarantee that there will be a sequel. There’s also some extremely weird dialogue spoken…
Director Wim Wenders has made some extraordinary films during his remarkable career, including Wings of Desire, The American Friend, The End of Violence, Buena Vista Social Club, Pina, and Paris, Texas. His latest film, Submergence, is not part of that rarefied company; it’s a mess and completely at odds with itself at more than one…
I just recently viewed this flick for the second time, and I liked it even more than on my first screening. Matthew Ross, a former reporter for Variety and editor of Filmmaker magazine, crafted an intense psychosexual drama with the 2016 indie Frank & Lola, a film that features extremely strong performances from the always-superb…
