Reviews

The world of online fame is a strange one. There are people out there with millions of fans, real fans that are actively subscribed to the output of artists and sometimes literally invested in their…

Agnes slides neatly into the subgenre of ‘nun horror’ with the likes of, you guessed it, The Nun. However, Agnes prides itself on building tension rather than being full of jump scares. When you’re placed…

The Night House opens with Beth (Rebecca Hall) returning home after her husband’s funeral. She lives inside a luxurious lake house, itself designed by her late husband Owen (Evan Jonigkeit). Owen’s death was self-inflicted. It…

So many pandemic-set films since the beginning of COVID-19 are about the immediacy of it. The near-instantaneous feeling that everything has changed without the time to possibly reckon with what’s happened. Kelsey Egan’s Glasshouse takes…

The Last Thing Mary Saw is a 19th-century folk story, centered around sin and suspicion. We are introduced to Mary (Stefanie Scott) as she is blindfolded in a dark, candle-lit room. This is at the…

Almost every conceivable trigger warning is in effect for Rob Jabbaz’s pandemic horror movie, The Sadness. Saying the film isn’t afraid to “go there” is probably the biggest understatement of Fantasia 2021 — it’s undoubtedly the…

Matthew Gray Gubler is a modern-day icon in the eyes of many. King Knight has been long-awaited by both fans of his and director Richard Bates Jr. It’s slightly dark, yet reassuringly humorous. It’s everything…

The 2016 horror/thriller Don’t Breathe was a surprise success that not only did well at the box office, but also proved to be a critical hit. The film followed a group of petty thieves who attempt…

A mysterious social experiment brings a group of eccentric strangers together to compete for a prize. It’s the synopsis for many low-budget thrillers and dark comedies. And somehow, Stanleyville feels almost entirely divorced from the subgenre. You’ve…

Despite how much social media is seemingly at the center of our lives, there are still only precious few good movies about the subject. What is it that makes it so hard to capture? Is…

Through extremely stylized Art Deco sets, and cinematography comparable to Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, Tiong Bahru Social Club is an extraordinary watch. Straight from Singapore’s own Bee Thiam Tan, we are thrown into a…

It was November of 1970. Dennis Hopper, hot off the success of his counterculture masterpiece Easy Rider and deep into post-production of his second feature, The Last Movie travels from Taos, New Mexico to Los Angeles…

Biopics have long been a crowd favorite. From the 1985 Best Picture winner Amadeus to the modern classic The Social Network, audiences are enamored by the idea of watching a biographical tale unfold on the…

The PR machine for the film industry can sometimes be a nightmare as directors, actors, and others associated with a project do whatever they can to hype it up. After a while, the insane comparisons…

To say that a two-and-a-half-hour-long film is on the shorter side of a director’s filmography may sound like a deeply confused claim, but for Filipino auteur Lav Diaz — whose works are less like films…

Few snippets of on-screen text in modern foreign cinema have been as intriguing as the opening blurb of Tsai Ming-liang’s latest film, Days — “This film is intentionally unsubtitled.” — not just because it points to a…

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair captures the essence of online culture. Hints of Eighth Grade, Nerve, and Unfriended are all combined to make an anxious 86 minutes. Despite its parallels to those few…

Calling Ryoo Seung-wan one of the most successful South Korean directors of his time is not an incredibly far stretch — even when comparing him to his more acclaimed contemporaries — thanks to just how…

So many films present a dystopian future by isolating one particularly destructive idea and playing out its disastrous societal effects. Whatever the cause for the decline of civilization — whether it’s alien invasions, dictatorships, or…

October might be a few months away, but trick or treating has already started with Batman: The Long Halloween Part One. The only problem is Part One is lacking the ingredients that make for a…

It is one of the most satisfying feelings when you are watching a film and it dawns on you that you’re watching something great. For a specific type of viewer, David Lowery’s latest film The…

Santiago Segura takes the driver’s seat in the fast-paced journey that is The Five Rules of Success. This is not for the faint-hearted.  X (Santiago Segura) is an ex-convict newly released back into the world.…

There has been a considerable amount of discourse surrounding M. Night Shyamalan in the days leading up to and following the release of his latest film, Old, and I want to start this review by…

When life gets you down, sometimes it seems like there’s no road up. Co-directors Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel take an in-depth look into The Cara Program, an employment support group that aids struggling Chicagoans…

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…