It is so depressing to watch a movie that should have been fun, but isn’t. The Spiral is worse than a prank gone wrong. It’s even worse than telling someone on their way home from a funeral to smile. When a movie should have been a camp delight and is …
Gotham Chopra appropriates the classic language of IMAX documentaries in his free-flowing essay, Portrait of an Artist: Stephen Curry. What could’ve been a traditional piece of hagiography actually elevates its extreme glazing of Stephen Curry through a larger-than-life framing of a basketball giant as he accomplishes one of the greatest …
The Middleburg Film Festival is tucked away in the scenic, hunt-country suburbs of Washington, DC. It has become one of the premier regional festivals to watch during the fall awards campaigns. Over the past weekend, the festival rang in its 14th year with celebrated guests, post-film Q&As, panels, and a …
Every opinion I came across about The Only Living Pickpocket in New York before seeing it was positive. I didn’t see a single negative take, and with nothing else to go on, that consensus was carrying all of my expectations. I’m unfamiliar with Noah Segan as a director, as I …
There is a really boring recent trend in world cinema to make movies about rich people learning valuable lessons. From Triangle of Sadness onwards there has been too many movies about affluent people being all surprised that someone’s money is not the most important thing about them. The trouble is …
Company is directed by Casey Affleck, whose reputation as an actor is not unblemished, and whose reputation as a director will not be helped by the fact there are eight (eight!) credited cinematographers on Company, including himself. It is also not necessarily a positive thing that two of the movie’s …
You won’t have to wait long for directors Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson to answer the question at the top of most audience members’ minds when diving into Wicker. An adaptation of Ursula Mills’ “The Wicker Husband,” the directorial duo, who are also a real-life couple, know that most moviegoers wonder how on earth Olivia Colman’s …
Alejandro G. Iñárritu might have won the discourse game with Digger, but Romain Gavras has won the metatextual satire on the climate crisis with Sacrifice. The critically maligned character study on a vacuous actor suddenly caught in the middle of a terrorist attack during a climate change convention was largely …
We all know how the saying goes, there’s a first time for everything. For this film critic, Verity is officially my first ever delve into the world of Colleen Hoover film adaptations. Yes, Verity is yet another adaptation of a Hoover novel following the recent string of them chasing after …
Once again Tom Cruise has tried to hit a triple but instead has been immediately caught by the shortstop for a major out. Mr. Cruise’s first non-action role since his Axl Rose impression in 2012’s Rock of Ages was meant to be a bonanza for both the man as well …
My bar for Street Fighter was “fine,” and I don’t mean that as an insult. I went in expecting a perfectly okay video game adaptation with thin characters, story, and overall writing, and I was at peace with that. All I needed was action good enough and pacing fast enough …
It might be necessary to have a certain kind of family to truly appreciate this kind of disaster movie. If you know someone – your sister-in-law, perhaps? Or your least favourite cousin? – whose reaction on learning another relative will not be attending Christmas dinner is “How dare that bitch …
Christopher Nolan may have made many a release that is regarded as his best; and that’s the telltale sign of a good director. You get debates over The Prestige, Interstellar, The Dark Knight, Memento and more, but one film that doesn’t crop up as often as it should is Dunkirk. …
The self-indulgence of Hombre al Agua (which translates to “Man Overboard”) is kind of its point, for it’s about the ways people play parts in their lives and how privilege allows the privileged to change the terms of the act. Fortunately a movie in which the writer-director-coproducer also stars as …
Back in 2023, Brian Duffield (No One Will Save You) turned a nearly wordless Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart), a lonely house, and some of the best sound design of that year into one of my favorite surprises, and his name has been on my radar ever since. Before that, he co-wrote …
At this point, I don’t need much more than Margaret Qualley (The Substance) on a poster. I’ve followed her since The Leftovers, still one of the best shows of the century, and it’s been a pleasure watching everyone else catch up. Between Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Poor Things, …
A family is a fragile thing too often taken for granted, and once the love is gone it’s very hard to bring back. A Common Story has an unusual gimmick: it is about a family, but the child hardly features. For she has grown up and gone off to university, …
The first thing I liked about this movie was its title. The 1953 ascent of Everest has often been told as Edmund Hillary’s story, with the Sherpa who reached the summit beside him mentioned as the other guy in the photo. This film is called Tenzing. Not “Everest,” not “The …
Violet McGraw is one of Hollywood’s favorite new scream queens, having made a name for herself in the M3GAN franchise and The Curse of the Necklace alongside sister Madeleine. For her latest movie, the actress is putting her spin on Christmas with the holiday heist Double Trouble. Violet and Madeleine …
Some will debate the pertinence of a movie starting with a quote, but I found myself particularly amused by how Rob Savage’s Other Mommy begins with a line attributed to Aynar of Erebus, stating, “A chance to be human, the miracle that we mistake for the ordinary, is coveted by …