Capernaum is a MASTERPIECE. Nadine Labaki’s naturalistic yet still slightly aesthetically heightened direction is on full, brilliant display for two hours. The script she co-wrote with Jihad Hojaily and Michelle Keserwany uses effective melodrama in all the proper ways. Telling an emotionally gripping story about a young boy who has to make some large growing-up…
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…
Colossal is a cute and clever “monster movie” where the CGI is kept to a minimum and done on a cool scale with a unique looking monster and some game performances from Anne Hathaway (long haired Anne POWER!), Jason Sudeikis, and everyone else in the cast, who all signed up for an inherently asinine little…
Infused with a tragic sense of personal melancholy as his wife was murdered in real life, writer/director Brad Silberling’s unfairly neglected 2002 drama Moonlight Mile is a heartfelt and consistently moving piece of cinema that features sterling work from Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon as grieving parents, baby-faced Jake Gyllenhaal as their emotionally stunted would-be…
Robert Redford’s brilliant family drama Ordinary People is a great movie. How could it not be? It’s real. It’s genuine. Nothing is overdone. And everything works. Redford’s invisible direction, for which he won an Oscar in no less than his directorial debut, is sublime, never showboating in any aesthetic fashion, instead allowing Alvin Sargent’s sensitive…
Walter Hill, sadly, has made so many films that have bombed with theatrical audiences, and one of his most underappreciated efforts is his 1984 “Rock & Roll Fable” Streets of Fire, which features Michael Pare and a blazing-hot Diane Lane as music-crossed lovers who have to contend with a lethal biker gang led by a…
Cherry 2000 is a fantastic cinematic explosion of ideas, genres, tones, and possibilities. In other words – it’s a Steve De Jarnatt picture, ahead of its time during initial release, and so ready for rediscovery by modern audiences it’s almost a joke. Feeling like an acid-tinged riff on the post-apocalyptic action narrative with shades of…
t’s A Wonderful Life remains a stone cold classic of American cinema. Masterwork goes without saying; the very definition of unforgettable. Frank Capra knew how to mix true sadness with true uplift, and when you look back on the film now it’s sort of easy to understand why it wasn’t met with universal acclaim and…
Brad Bird’s wonderful film The Iron Giant has a ton of honest and genuine heart to match its retro animated style, and despite not finding a blockbuster theatrical audience, has become both a cult and family favorite for those looking for a film with a serious message and that still packs prime entertainment value. Released…
