Reviews

Clark Duke has made a sizeable living being the dependable comic relief. He was the one who traveled to the fictional eighties alongside John Cusack in Hot Tub Time Machine; he was the nerdy sidekick…

You probably don’t need me to tell you that ICE detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants throughout the United States is a hot button issue. You also probably didn’t need me to start this review by…

I agonized over the title of this article for some time. (SEO is tough, ya’ll.) But sometimes, when a movie is as ridiculous as Deerskin, being as plain as possible can do wonders. It paints…

In January of 2019 at the Sundance Film Festival, I saw a film that I was convinced was going to resonate wide and far in Martha Stephens melancholic coming-of-age film To The Stars. The film…

Pop quiz hotshot, when a witch moves in next door with the power to make you forget about ever having kids with a meer whisper, what do you do? The Wretched takes some elements from The Burbs, The…

High school reporter Rachel Bhargava (Geraldine Viswanathan) is photocopying financial records from her district’s archives when she notices water dripping from the ceiling. She’s working on a story about a skywalk her superintendent, Doctor Frank…

Every generation has their favorite high school movie. From Fast Times at Ridgemont High to Booksmart, seeing whipsmart or daffy teenagers played mostly by actors in their 20s traverse the difficulties of growing has made for…

Why Don’t You Just Die! comes from writer/director Kirill Sokolov and tells the story of Matvey, a young man who has been tasked with murdering his girlfriend’s detective father, Andrey, by none other than his…

It’s safe to say I wasn’t lamenting Bloodshot‘s uninspired opening weekend at the box office in mid-March amid virus concerns. (You know what’s worse than getting the Coronavirus? Getting the Coronavirus AND having to listen to…

Cults. They’re fascinating, aren’t they? Groups of people who are convinced of one belief system or one way to live at the expense of their best interests, charismatic leaders, and often weird outfits. The cult…

One of the very, very tiny benefits of the current state of the world which is otherwise forcing me to have an existential crisis every twenty minutes is the ability to discover some of the smaller, more…

On paper, The Hunt didn’t seem to offer anything new. The initial premise calls back to the 1924’s short story, The Most Dangerous Game, which has been adapted numerous times — most notably, of course,…

Melbourne and Sydney cinephiles craving cinema that is bold, subversive, unconventional, or just plain bizarre have rejoiced with the inaugural Fantastic Film Festival Australia. Over 2 weeks in late February and early March, the festival…

When I was a teenage boy, like many of my peers, I was obsessed with coming-of-age films. In particular, I loved the high school party comedies like Superbad, American Pie, and Dazed and Confused. I…

Onward, a movie I had no expectations for, but I went to see it anyway because it comes from Pixar. It turned out to be a great decision for two reasons: there’s a hilarious short…

It might sound ridiculous to some, but so be it: VFW was one of my most anticipated films of the year. It started with the premise: a siege-style thriller with a group of aging veterans…

Conducting a therapy session by way of moviemaking is something I’m intensely interested in…if done correctly. It feeds into our fascination with celebrity, and the films themselves take on deeper meanings than what’s on the…

Kelly Reichardt’s latest, First Cow, distributed by A24, is an intimate look at male friendship, the American dream, and baking. Reichardt is well-known for her films about American life, focusing on dire times and looked-over…

We don’t need to see eye to eye, we just have to remain respectful. This virtue is understood by most children, but it seems lost in American political discourse. It’s disheartening seeing people cheer for…

From generations of watching blood spew all over the screen — brought upon by some of our favorite horror icons and other nefarious ne’er-do-wells — we’re all a bit conditioned to bodily harm in movies.…

With a new calendar year, we are usually bombarded with a large number of bad movies. Whether it is big studios dumping films that don’t look too promising, betting on a movie star to bring…

It’s hard to find someone who wouldn’t know what the Superman emblem looks like these days. However, over the decades, Superman has had his fair share of critics who are frustrated with his seemingly unmatched…

Full disclosure: my family and I are fans of the television program, Impractical Jokers. In fact, on weekends, when my husband is home, it’s on for much of the day. It’s in heavy rotation on truTV,…

I like to think I’m a fan of most film genres, but there’s something about a taut mystery that is extra exciting. Disappearance at Clifton Hill channels a lot of what makes the genre great, trapping…

You don’t always know how important something is until you’re confronted with its sparse reality. It’s sort of the converse of saying you don’t really appreciate something until it’s gone. Universal’s new film, The Photograph,…

Dating at a young age is like trying to maneuver through a minefield, especially in relationships that go horribly wrong. You still have no idea who you are, and you can almost forget knowing how…

Although it was received with mixed reviews, 2016’s The Boy attracted a reasonable amount of attention thanks to its unusual conclusion. It managed to steer clear of the familiar ‘creepy doll’ horror tropes and was…

I wasn’t planning on seeing The Call of the Wild (2020) this year. Harrison Ford seemed out of place and the CG dog seemed like an abomination. Plus, I’d seen behind-the-scenes shots of Harrison Ford petting a…

It is a truth universally acknowledged…wait, wrong one. “Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly…

“Someone’s always watching…” Such is the tagline for The Night Clerk (2020), the straight-to-home-rental crime drama from Michael Cristofer. Weaving the yarn of a voyeuristic everyman desperate to prove his innocence, it emulates Sir Alfred…

I’m always fascinated by what people in the industry can do with such limited resources. It’s a constant reminder that filmmaking is a marvel. And also that it’s hard. Incredibly hard. Amazingly, for Olympic Dreams, director…

When it comes to films with a heavy focus on artists and art in general, it is difficult to not be a little apprehensive. It can often be a slippery slope leading into shallow self-indulgence…

Title pun aside, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood remade Ruben Östland’s Force Majeure. The premise is just too good to pass up, being both a high-concept, attention-grabbing jumping-off point for marketing…

The Assistant, Kitty Green’s first fictionalized film, is a master class in subtlety and illustrates just how powerless young women are when faced with powerful, abusive people. Julia Garner plays Jane, a quiet but talented…

Capitalizing off the CGI technology available to it during this age of digital filmmaking, Jeff Fowler’s Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) could have been a dream come true for younger fans of Sega as well as…

I had a funny experience when I caught up with Netflix’s Miss Americana, the Taylor Swift documentary which captures her political awakening while also recapping her career and work leading up to the release of…

Sometimes, a tragedy happens that is so beyond the scale of my comprehension, that I cannot fully engage in it. It can be hard to watch relentless news coverage or read emotional articles about senseless…

Like my fellow ordained Dudeist Ministers out there, I’ve seen The Big Lebowski countless times. It’s a film that not only became increasingly entertaining after each consecutive viewing, but its underlying message also became of great philosophical and spiritual…

Elijah Wood will most likely be remembered as Frodo Baggins, the kind-hearted and heroic hobbit who struggled through the corrupting powers of Sauron’s Ring. But his acting career besides his middle-earth ventures should be not…

After my first experience at Sundance last year, I arrived this year at the festival cognizant of the hyperbolic reactions that come with the environment. (Or, at the very least, I did my best. I’m…