Reviews

“You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could that you didn’t stop to think if you should”. This iconic line delivered by Jeff Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm in the original Jurassic Park is …

Formula 1 is at the height of its powers. Having finally broken through in the US after decades of trying (largely thanks to the success of the Netflix documentary series Drive to Survive), this high-octane, …

Making history at the Oscars, the box office, and encouraging us all to overcome the one-inch barrier of subtitles, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite was a cinematic juggernaut unlike anything we’ve seen. Director Bong brought his signature …

With nearly 100 years of cinematic history that has included numerous failures and false dawns in the 21st century, it would seem there isn’t much new ground to be covered when it comes to the …

There’s an inherent, almost post-modern irony about Coraline Fargeat’s much-anticipated second feature after 2017’s Revenge simply within its title. The Substance not only eludes to the mysterious and vague miracle drug at the center of this brazen …

Among the first images you see in Niles Atallah’s odd but entrancing Animalia Paradoxa is a screen with the lines, “The mass extinction crept up unheard. Death’s dominion began without a word.” An ominous yet …

I first noticed June Squibb in 1997’s In & Out, in which her character complained about her husband’s third testicle. The second time I noticed her, was in 2002’s About Schmidt, in which her character’s …

It is very rare to walk into a cinema to watch a film and leave feeling like you just had an experience that changed you as a person. This type of experience is something that …

The strongest trait of the Planet of the Apes franchise, which has now spanned over 50 years and is officially ten films deep, has been its ability to evolve from film to film. With each …

Filmmaking debuts are something that has always fascinated me. To be a filmmaker is to be courageous enough to put something that is a part of you out for, hypothetically, the entire world to access. …

Few filmmakers ever commit as hard to the promises of their own stories as the virtually inimitable Luca Guadagnino. Even before the creation of the Oscar-winning Call Me By Your Name — still by far …

Late-night television has evolved quite significantly over decades of television history. What started as a simple variety show made to sell ads, soon became an important platform to discuss hot-button political issues. But these days, …

The first Dune ended with Zendaya‘s Chani saying, “This is only the beginning”, which frustrated and excited viewers in equal measure as a promise of what could come if the film was financially successful enough …

Movies about hitmen tend to go either of two ways: either they are about specialized killers with a moral code (see Jean Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï, Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog, or the recent David Fincher …

Is there a genre of film that is more frustrating than the music biopic? These larger-than-life icons who lived incredible, inspirational, and even tragic lives when adapted for the big screen are so often the …

Cooking is an inherently cinematic process. When someone is a truly gifted cook, it is an artistic expression that takes years of refinement and commitment to even begin to perfect. However, it also takes a …

Mothers want the best for their children. But what the parent wants is not always what the child wants. Written and directed by Maryam Keshavarz, The Persian Version follows the mother-daughter duo of Shireen (Niousha …

If you love cinema, then chances are, you love Martin Scorsese. His indelible mark on cinema could not be bigger, both as a filmmaker with a foundational and eclectic oeuvre most artists could only dream …

Ansa (Alma Pöysti) and Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) are strays. Their lives both coexist from afar. Ansa works in a supermarket on a woeful zero-hour contract. Holappa works in construction, surrounded by management that doesn’t care …

The first thing that comes to mind when I think about the Australian outback is 2005’s intensely divisive Wolf Creek. The sinister picture that Wolf Creek paints of the Aussie wilderness could put off any …

Film as a medium has always worked in nebulous service of the truth. Subjectivity, in particular, is one of its most prominent tools; the limitations of the frame allow for countless possibilities to express what …

While watching The Creator, I couldn’t help but think of Kevin Feige’s hilarious comments about Chloé Zhao’s work on The Eternals. He’s been so Volume™-pilled that he may or may not have forgotten how the …

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 …

Life goes by in a blink of an eye. One second, we are young with (hopefully) years ahead of us. The next thing we know, we are middle-aged and dealing with work, family, and other …

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 …

When facing war, a political leader knows that there will be hard choices to make. They also know that lives will be lost. The new biopic, Golda, follows the late Golda Meir (Helen Mirren) during the Yom Kippur War. …

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 …