Reviews

Ben Platt, a man of many talents. He once again showcases his raw, exquisite acting skills in Peter Sattler’s Broken Diamonds. Scott (Platt) is an aspiring author, longing to move to Paris. His flights are booked…

Some of Mark Wahlberg’s most fascinating films have found him in strange roles. In every one of them, however, he always manages to make his character into some overly macho badass who never grows as…

It’s hard to deny the title has some punch to it. The peculiar world of chessboxing, a sport determined to find the smartest toughest guy. The art of chessboxing is finding the balance between two…

Take one look at, say, Netflix’s vast documentary catalog, and you’ll instantly realize that the true-crime documentary genre has found itself in a state of oversaturation. From the litany of same-ish docs on streaming services…

We practically demand that our entertainment speak to us in a meaningful way. We require it to be some sort of solution or commentary to the injustices in the world, expecting our creatives to help…

Nature documentaries often take a wonder-first approach to storytelling: the narration and cinematography are acutely focused on portraying the majesty of nature, the beauty of its subjects, and the stunning worlds that exist parallel to…

The nature of consciousness is a complex topic. One that humanity has tried to view through every lens that we’ve created or discovered. Religion, philosophy, psychology, biology, chemistry, and psychedelics, just to name a few.…

Few arguments seem more daunting in 2021 than taking the stance that Nicolas Cage is a good actor. Best known in 2021 as the man who stole the Declaration of Independence, or perhaps more unfortunately…

Eccentricity and innovation have always been defining features of any given artist — even more so for documentaries that specifically go out of their way to train a lens on them. Whether it be the…

I spent way too long trying to work out a title referencing Olympia black metal outfit Wolves In The Throne Room and the best I could do was Wolves in the Hotel Room so… let’s…

Profile is a story delivered in a repetitive pattern by Timur Bekmambetov who is now mostly known for producing Screenlife hits like Unfriended and Searching. A film that came out at an opportune time since…

When it comes to the Hollywood satire, the gold standard will forever be Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, followed by Robert Altman’s The Player. Other underappreciated jewels to this genre are The Coen Brothers’ Barton Fink,…

Ahh, the 1980s. Season of mixtapes and mellow Rubik’s cubes. Ripe for nostalgia adjacent movies and TV like The Goldbergs and WW84, they’ve recently been a goldmine for horror makers. Boosted in particular by the…

Once scheduled for a mid-2020 release, In the Heights was one of last year’s summer blockbusters to fall victim to a delayed launch due to the pandemic and the shuttered theater industry. And after a…

I will never forget how I felt the moment I finished reading Capote’s In Cold Blood. I was overwhelmed by sadness and disappointment, not because the book was bad, but that I was aware that it…

The Fast & Furious franchise is an ever-evolving set of films that has fascinated and possibly baffled audiences for the past two decades. Once upon a time, the franchise was about street racing, pink slips,…

I promise I like a lot of movies — I even am a huge fan of the thriller genre! I know that recent reviews of The Virtuoso and The Woman in the Window seem to…

George A. Romero’s The Amusement Park is a nightmarish 53 minutes. Recently found and restored from its original production in 1973, the story deals with an interesting yet profoundly disturbing viewpoint of getting old.  We…

A group of lovable misfits in a predominantly working-class Welsch village comes together to form a horse racing syndicate to compete against the big boys on the race track. They’re all down on their luck, either…

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who asked for a 134-minute origin story of a character who originated in a 79-minute cartoon, but alas, Cruella is here. Since the film premiered, much of the conversation has…

Ed and Lorraine Warren are back on our screens yet again, this time to tackle a supernatural court case based on the true story of the Trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson. In The Conjuring: The Devil Made…

Warning: major spoilers for the first A Quiet Place ahead. The original A Quiet Place film was hugely successful, and first-time director John Krasinski did something that felt unique at the time. Not only was…

Melanie (Stefania LaVie Owen) is a high school senior and wrestling with all the normal anxieties that come with it. Her bright future promises to lead her in her late father’s footsteps across the country…

A horrific crime, locals thirsty for vengeance. When Federal Agent Aaron Falk returns to his remote, drought-stricken hometown in the Australian outback to go to the funeral of a friend, he’s roped into solving a…

2016 will for me always be linked with the death of Abbas Kiarostami, one of my all-time favorite directors and the godfather of Iranian cinema. Luckily, there is still a lot of talent around. There…

After the Holocaust, the catchphrase “Never Again” caught fire. It was supposed to be the reminder of what hate and prejudice can do to humanity. But in the 76 years since World War II ended,…

David, a husband and father of four desperately attempts to keep his family intact during a tense separation from his wife in The Killing of Two Lovers. The couple agrees to see other people, but…

Taylor Sheridan emerged as an exciting new screenwriting talent in the mid-2010s. A long-time TV actor who appeared on shows like Sons of Anarchy and Veronica Mars, Sheridan’s first screenplay for 2015’s Sicario introduced the world to…

Plagues Used to be Even Less Fun The Great Plague of 1665 ripped a deadly swath through England, killing tens of thousands and destabilizing a country still recovering from the civil war a decade earlier.…

The Emily mentioned in the title is Emily Levine, an actress, stand-up comedian, TV writer, and lecturer. She was known for her smart sense of humor which she used in her lectures. As you can…