Odd Man Out Review
RATING: (4 STARS) It’s finally happening: Director Carol Reed is getting the recognition he deserves. Of course, it’s only 60 or 70 years too late to make a difference in his career. And of course, I’m only referring to the small (but sometimes deafening) community that goes nuts over things like auteurship, black and white […]
Mad Max: Fury Road Review
RATING: (4 STARS) Holy shit. Thirty years is a long time to wait for a new installment in a film franchise, but Mad Max: Fury Road overcomes this problem for a variety of reasons. Firstly, director George Miller simply doesn’t care if you’re familiar with what’s come before. He’s also smart enough to forge a […]
World of Tomorrow Review
RATING: (4 STARS) It lasts just 17 minutes, but Don Herzfeldt’s World of Tomorrow packs more imagination into its running time than almost any other film I’ve ever seen. It’s a high-concept, low-sheen, utterly magical experience that, despite its brevity (or perhaps because of it), will certainly rank among my favorite films of 2015. Technically, […]
Sleepless Night Review
RATING: (4 STARS) Better than Bond, better than Bourne, better than Bauer, the new French thriller Sleepless Night sets a new bar for white-knuckle action movies. Taking place over a 24-hour period and primarily in one giant nightclub, the film is intense in ways no other has been in years. Vincent (Tomer Sisley) and his […]
Inherent Vice Review
RATING: (4 STARS) A stoner private dick, his manipulative ex-old-lady, her millionaire land developer lover, his scheming wife, her ripped kept man. A recovering dope fiend single mother, her missing snitch boyfriend, a black panther, a gang of Nazis, an maniacal actor cop, a maritime lawyer, a pot-smoking assistant DA, nose-picking FBI agents, and a […]
Interstellar Review
RATING: (4 STARS) I want to talk about how well-made Interstellar is. I want to talk about Hoyte Van Hoytema’s cinematography in director Christopher Nolan’s ambitious, awe-inspiring film; it’s remarkable. Stepping in for regular Nolan contributor Wally Pfister, Van Hoytema establishes an old-fashioned aesthetic full of shots of a decaying Earth and a quietly wonderous […]
Life Itself Review
RATING: (4 STARS) “A film like Hoop Dreams is what the movies are for. It takes us, shakes us, and make us think in new ways about the world around us. It gives us the impression of having touched life itself.” —Roger Ebert, 1994 There’s a really clever reflexiveness at play with the last two […]
Night and Fog Review
RATING: (4 STARS) Alain Resnais originally didn’t want to make Night and Fog, and following its production, he suffered from prolonged nightmares. A viewer might experience something similar. It isn’t an easy task to sit down and consume Night and Fog, despite its mere 30-minute running time, and its disturbing imagery will leave that viewer […]
Die Hard Review
RATING: (4 STARS) There’s a reason why, 25 years after its release, John McTiernan’s Die Hard is such a ubiquitous film. There’s a reason why it’s been sequelized and duplicated to death. There’s a reason why, following it, Bruce Willis became a star. There’s a reason why it’s often named among the very best action […]
Muscle Shoals Review
RATING: (4 STARS) “It’s like the songs come out of the mud.” That’s Bono, trying to explain how a small Alabama town of 8,000—the titular town of Greg ‘Freddy’ Camalier’s documentary—could produce some of the best, most soulful music in humankind’s history. Aretha Franklin, Percy Sledge, Etta James, Clarence Carter—not to mention rock acts like […]
The Hunt Review
RATING: (4 STARS) Dane Thomas Vinterberg is a director who (rightfully) achieved a great deal of notoriety with his 1998 film The Celebration, which is in the books as the very first movie with the Dogme ’95 seal of approval. The Lars von Trier– and Vinterberg-led movement called upon filmmakers to shun special effects, extra […]
Inside Llewyn Davis Review
RATING: (4 STARS) I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say Inside Llewyn Davis is the Coen Brothers‘s most emotional movie. After a half-decade turning out great film after great film every 12 months or so, Joel and Ethan take a couple years and come back with something that’s as enigmatic as Barton Fink, as […]
Dirty Wars Review
RATING: (4 STARS) Dirty Wars is a devastating experience. It’s a film that chews up your hopeful, idealistic illusions regarding American leadership, spits them out, and leaves a cruise-missile-sized hole in your heart for good measure. Drone strikes and extra-covert military operations (including those that occur in nation-states we aren’t formally at war with) have […]
Gravity Review
RATING: (4 STARS) “I hate space.” That quote represents a brief moment of levity in Gravity, an otherwise harrowing thriller, and it perfectly sums up its lead character, rookie spacewalker Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock). The film itself—or at least the stakes from which every bit of tension is derived—is better summarized by a quote […]
Prisoners Review
RATING: (4 STARS) Prisoners is the most tightly plotted 153-minute movie you’ll ever see. It’s a masterpiece of the crime genre that covers a lot of ground, but every crumb, clue, and detail dropped by director Denis Villeneuve and screenwriter Aaron Guzikowski is essential to its (murky-ish) resolution. Comparisons to films like Se7en and Zodiac […]
Mud Review
RATING: (4 STARS) Nobody makes movies like Jeff Nichols, few people make movies as well as Jeff Nichols, and Jeff Nichols has never made a movie as rich and satisfying as Mud. The film is ultimately about love in all of its messy incarnations, but told from a child’s perspective, it takes the shape of […]
