DreamWorks Animation has always been regarded as the biggest rival to Disney/Pixar, but despite a few memorable sagas like Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon, and Madagascar, the truth is that the studio has rarely delivered stand-alone original works with the same cultural impact as many of the latter’s movies. …
Genre within art is a funny thing. They are arbitrary bindings that place films in little boxes, more often than not segregating the ideas within on aesthetic merits. Their necessity is up for debate, but sometimes the argument finds itself presented on screen. Director Cooper Roberts’ charming and energetic debut …
When Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, the first of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, hit cinemas in 1999, it proved extremely divisive. A definite victim of overhype, with some fans literally camping outside cinemas before the first screening, neither critics nor audiences seemed to agree on the film’s quality. The …
This Telugu-language movie was guaranteed major international distribution once N. T. Rama Rao Jr. agreed to star. After all, he was half of the leading duo in RRR, the Indian movie which so dramatically punched through to an international audience. Yet Devara Part 1 is not designed for an international …
In her, An Incomplete List of What the Cameraperson Enables, Kirsten Johnson proposes several actions and connections that portraying a subject in camera allows. One is the chance to be closer or farther (through the lens) than is physically possible. Leila Amini uses her cameras to capture the experiences of …
Francis Ford Coppola’s first feature film in 13 years was always going to generate excitement, but Megalopolis – since its divisive Cannes premiere and disastrous marketing campaign with AI-generated quotes (the fault of US distributor Lionsgate, not Coppola) – is almost a sensation. Add in a star-studded cast, some of …
Timestalker, the sophomore directorial feature of writer-director Alice Lowe, takes the Shakespearean adage “The course of true love never did run smooth” to its most extreme and fantastical conclusion. Lowe plays Agnes, a woman who lives an ordinary life with only a nagging, unplaceable inkling that something is missing. More …
I have been staring at a blinking cursor for several minutes now, failing to find a place to start discussing Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance. This is, to be clear, not a complaint. The audacious and unrelenting film is one of the most singular works of cinema I have seen this …
In China, when there is suspicion of an affair, people hire a private investigator to terminate the relationship. It is a growing profession called Mistress Dispeller. When facing the infidelity of her husband, Mrs. Li decides to tell her brother, who connects her with Wang Zhenxi, a professional mistress dispeller. …
During the pandemic, actor Will Ferrell got an email while shooting Spirited by Sean Anders. It was an announcement from an old friend he made when he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 1995. He joined the cast as a performer and the friend as a sketch writer. …
It’s depressing to realize someone is coasting on their reputation instead of using their talent, and in fact making so little use of their talent that their reputation becomes suspect. This is the sorry state of affairs after seeing The Room Next Door, written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, that …
This 3 ½ hour long tale, complete with intermission, of a Jewish-Hungarian architect attempting to make his way in America after the second world war is what Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis wishes it had been. It is about human dignity in the face of incredible suffering, and the ways in …
Happy Holidays is possibly as apolitical as a Palestinian movie can get, which is to say not very. Writer-editor-director Scandar Copti, who won the Orrozonti prize for best screenplay at this year’s Venice Biennale, worked with non-professional actors in an non-linear fashion to depict a very bad few months in …
They live in Metz, a city in northeastern France close to the borders with both Germany and Luxembourg. Both sons, who are in their very early twenties, cheerfully live at home. The older Fus (Benjamin Voisin) studied to be a welder but has been unable to find paying work so …
Writer-director Francesca Comencini apparently decided that her entire audience for The Time It Takes would be people who already knew that she is the daughter of the late Italian film director Luigi Comencini. This was so obvious to her that neither the father (played by Fabrizio Gifuni) nor the daughter …
What you have to realize about Queer is that it is an adaptation of a book by William S. Burroughs, so the queerness on display here is less about sexuality, but more a way of looking at the world. William Lee, largely Lee to his friends (an astonishing Daniel Craig), …
The most anticipated film of the Venice Biennale this year was the epic Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2, which landed with something of a whimper instead of the bang it truly deserves. Kevin Costner’s project, the first part of which had its world premiere in Cannes this past …
There is a disturbing edge to Yudhra that is only slightly explained by the plot. It is clear from how action director Federico Cueva, cinematographer Jay Oza and director Ravi Udyawar staged and filmed the brutal fight scenes that they really enjoyed going so hard. The (superb) night-time gunfight on …
Among all streaming services, Apple TV+ is the one that comes closest to the motto “quality over quantity.” Compared to Netflix, Max, Disney+, or Prime Video, the “apple network” doesn’t produce as much content – ugh, hate that word – but the average quality of its films and series is …
Personally, all it takes is an interesting cast to convince me to sit down in a theater or on my couch at home to watch a movie without feeling the need to look up any further information about it. Killer Heat fits into this “category”, featuring a trio of leads …