Nick Kush

There’s a scene early on in My Sailor, My Love where shut-in Howard and newly-hired housekeeper Annie are tending to Howard’s long-neglected apple trees. As they place the fruit into baskets, they both reach for…

It’s been funny to see Knives Out essentially take the Hercule Poirot franchise’s lunch the last few years. That’s not to say Kenneth Branagh’s Agatha Christie trilogy is an abject failure, but comparing the two…

Editor’s note: A previous draft of this review for Mad Cats included the pun, “It’s not purrfect.” We apologize for even considering such a bad pun. We’ll do better in the future.   A movie…

If there’s one thing to take away from New Life, it’s that John Rosman knows how to structure a screenplay. Rosman’s debut is the special kind of film that withholds just the right amount of…

One of my toxic traits is that I love a good single-location thriller. There’s something about being trapped in a life-threatening situation with one character that always pulls me in. Are they hurt? Are they…

In a time when so many big-budget blockbuster hopefuls are prepackaged as the start of an entire universe of films before they arrive in theaters, it’s nearly impossible for someone like yours truly to imagine…

Hundreds of Beavers. Amazing title. No notes. The content of the film itself? Shockingly little notes there too! Hundreds of Beavers is the epitome of a film festival discovery: a wildly creative, handmade project that…

Sophie (Judy Greer) is reeling after her husband Mal (Edi Gathegi) tragically died in a drunk driving incident eight months ago. Mal was a scientist, and shared that love with their daughter Riley (Faithe Herman);…

Countless moments in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie had me thinking, “I can’t believe this is a real movie.” From a hilarious 2001-style opening in which little girls smash their old dolls, to Margot Robbie drinking imaginary…

Compared to other festivals, I’ve always had a loving appreciation for the Fantasia Film Festival as a platform for hard genre films from all over the globe. Chances are that if you watch enough films…

Despite nestling into the role of this generation’s it girl, Sydney Sweeney has always struck me as someone who is completely in control of her career. Each choice is a clear effort to buck against…

Although it might not have always seemed like it, the recent wave of movies and television shows about businesses and their founders is part of the logical next step in the movie industry. In a…

In an age with too many Adam McKay or Aaron Sorkin movies that are punishingly tone-deaf and insultingly superficial in their political critiques, R.M.N. is a breath of fresh air. Well, maybe not exactly —…

Saim Sadiq’s debut feature has that creeping sense of profundity that is usually the mark of an experienced artist. Never rushed, living in each scene until the proper moment. One can gather that Joyland is…

“If I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!” Words to live by. You’d be hard-pressed to find a film franchise more in-grained in American popular culture than Rocky. From the rugged neo-realism…

In last year’s top 10, I remarked that we’d eventually look back on 2021 as a significant transition year in the history of cinema. Well, allow me to expand (and slightly hedge) on that proclamation:…

In reflecting on the year, a film that always comes up in my mind is Audrey Diwan’s 1960s abortion drama, Happening. Many would point to the film’s startlingly prescient release just weeks before the Dobbs…

There’s a palpable sense of “less is more” in Joanna Hogg’s brand of formalism. Her camera is happy to sit back and observe, only moving very precisely when the scene calls for it. Commonly shooting on…

There must be some kind of small glitch in the Netflix algorithm. In the span of a few weeks, the streamer has released two black-and-white documentaries about a very famous person interviewing someone with Parkinson’s…

It’s almost staggering to think about how long Jonah Hill has been in the public eye at this point. 17 years after he really wanted those goldfish shoes in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, I sometimes have to…

It’s been a more-than-a-decade-long odyssey for Blonde to finally come to fruition. Andrew Dominik was reportedly drawn to the project all the way back in 2010. A few hiccups later — casting shifts, financing issues,…

Nel packs up her late father’s home while simultaneously unpacking memories of their volatile relationship.   Nick Kush: I very much admire Left Over‘s preference for small-stakes character building instead of histrionics. There are no screaming…

Leave it to Claire Denis to create the best representation of the pandemic onscreen yet. There are no Karens yelling over masks, no contagion spreading like wildfire. Instead, masks are a visual motif for the…

I had my come-to-Jesus moment with the MCU while watching Hawkeye a few months back. I had liked WandaVision and Loki enough, so why not try it out, I thought. Ten minutes in, the phone…

I’ll admit it, when Neon announced that Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s new film, Memoria, would embark on a never-ending, roadshow-style film tour across the country forever — meaning there will never be a streaming or Blu-ray release…

Is it weird to say that Adam Sandler is now one of our most consistent actors? Let’s break it down. Dramatic Sandler is on a pretty serious tear with The Meyerowitz Stories (severely underrated), Uncut…

When You Finish Saving the World Is it the least shocking film development ever that Jesse Eisenberg, one of our most anxious, idiosyncratic performers, centered his directorial debut around two highly anxious, idiosyncratic characters? If…

The reported heinous acts committed by the Russian government sound like something straight out of a 1970s political thriller. And that’s probably exactly how they like it. “If you want to kill someone,” Alexei Navalny…

For a brief moment, Sundance 2022 looked like it was going to function as a return to in-person festival moviegoing for the entire industry. Naturally, nature had other plans in store, so the entire festival…

If you’ve watched an indie film or two in your day, odds are you’ve stumbled upon a movie about a white guy who just can’t figure things out. They have no idea what to do…