I confess my expectations for a new entry in this saga were modest before Predator: Badlands, despite Dan Trachtenberg (Prey) returning. While Prey excelled at simplifying the formula and returning to basics, the ambition to completely shift the franchise’s point of view — transforming the antagonist into the protagonist — …
If you know anything at all about classic movies, you know about Kim Novak. She was one of the last actors to be molded for stardom under the old studio system, and she had such an unhappy time being set up as a rival to Marilyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth …
When someone says that high school was the best years of their life, they clearly peaked way too early; at least that’s my thought. Sure, there are some things that may seem simpler in retrospect, but existing within the same space as hundreds of other pubescent teenagers with varying levels …
For someone who watches a lot of horror movies, I can get easily scared. It probably sounds paradoxical to also admit that I don’t exactly enjoy the feeling of being scared; however, I digress. That being said, context is always important when it comes to what might freak me out, …
A pillion is a seat for a passenger behind a motorcyclist. This simple, not-overly-familiar word captures the whole experience of Colin (Harry Melling) in Harry Lighton’s feature directorial debut adapted from the 2020 novel Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones. In Pillion, Colin is shy, still living at home with his …
Continuing his prolific year, the Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude releases his second high-profile work of the year, his highly anticipated Dracula. Previously known as Dracula Park, its production name has had the growing hype since Jude’s last fiction work: Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World. …
A week before its original Sundance premiere, BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions by Kahlil Joseph had its participation withdrawn from the festival by its investor, Participant Media. The financer alleged the director showed a secret cut of the project to critics at the CAA screening room, justifying their intervention in the …
The prestigious publication, Screen International, publishes a yearly article about buzzy films they would like to see playing in the festival circuit. In this year’s piece, Forastera by Lucía Aleñar Iglesias is one of the films mentioned there. It is an impressive feature to include in the list alongside notable …
Writer-director-cinematographer-editor-composer Mark Jenkin has an idiosyncratic vision for Rose of Nevada, not just in how many of the behind the camera jobs he does himself, but also in how his corner of England is portrayed onscreen. For Mr. Jenkin is not English but Cornish (and you better believe there’s a …
Back when I was younger, Nicholas Sparks had cornered the market of romance books, with some of the most heartbreaking novels that have ever taken the world by storm. From The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, and Dear John, Sparks’ stories were designed to make readers cry as they volley …
Bradley Cooper’s third directorial feature, Is This Thing On?, is a more low-key and down-to-earth tale of one man’s middle-aged venture into standup comedy. Loosely based on the life of Liverpudlian comedian John Bishop, this story is gentle and rough around the edges about martial separation and finding yourself amid …
As I left the London Film Festival screening of Christy, I heard a stunned young woman telling her friend that this is a horror movie. And it is, of the most ordinary kind. It is also a biopic of sporting triumph about the importance of getting up every single time …
“Just Hedda is fine.” With these prickly, precise words, Hedda (Tessa Thompson) immediately establishes her self-image and control thereof. Hedda is the recently married wife of up-and-coming scholar George Tesman (Tom Bateman), but the legacy left by her father General Gabler – including his guns – is one she takes …
In Bona (1980), Filipino auteur Lino Brocka tacitly reckons with his country’s fascination with idle worship and swift salvation through his signature melodrama and social realism. The film was not among the triptych of landmark movies that redefined Philippine cinema and catapulted the director to the international scene. Those titles—Tinimbang …
This November, Pixar’s Toy Story turns 30. That number feels impossible to me. Released on November 22, 1995, just twelve days before I was born, the film became a fixture of my childhood, then my adolescence, and, honestly, my entire life. For years, I watched it nearly every day. It …
It’s something of a surprise that Roofman has done the festival circuit. It’s the kind of comfortable movie that Hollywood used to churn out by the dozen: casually dripping with stars, a plot that handles serious issues with a light touch, product placement that combines the American fervours for nostalgia …
The young Chilean filmmaker Diego Céspedes has a vigorous relationship with the Cannes Film Festival. His first short, El Verano del Léon Elétrico (The Summer of the Electric Lion), was part of the Cinefondation selection in 2018, which dedicates its program to films produced during the film school period. Four …
The sincerity with which Anemone begins with a child’s drawing of violence from the Northern Irish troubles does not bode well. And yet Daniel Day-Lewis, who has acted in two previous about the Troubles, In the Name of the Father and The Boxer, has taken his first acting role in …
Being a mortician seems to be a fusion of roles with partial therapist and spiritual duties combined to occur behind the scenes. Washing the deceased is a thankless task which is thrust into the spotlight in Mortician with a humane portrayal of Mojtaba, who works within a mortuary and fulfils …
At first glance La Grazia looks like another old-fashioned movie about responsibility and the care that we owe each other. Then the sound design by Mirko Perri and the score by Nick Donnelly kicks in, both heavily reliant on snippets of pulsing electronic music and thumping Italian rap, which somehow …