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Fiery ‘SALTBURN’ Glows With Psychosexual Heat, Palace Intrigue

In her second feature, writer, director, and producer Emerald Fennell digs her heels deeper into the themes of power dynamics and the consequences of privilege that she explored in 2020’s explosive Promising Young Woman, this time folding in palace intrigue by moving the action to the lofty estate of a family of aristocrats at the eponymous Saltburn. A decadent feast for the senses, Fennell’s sophomore feature calls to mind a tale as old as time framed through a modern lens: an unassuming Oxford scholar is allured by the corrosive power of wealth, finding himself sucked into a vortex of desire, greed, and materialism. It’s Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby with the hyper-modern visual high-shine of Euphoria and the cold calculation of a Bret Easton Ellis novel, plus a splash of the wealthy ennui found in a Sofia Coppola film. Read More

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Bittersweet Symphony ‘THE HOLDOVERS’ Waxes on Holiday Loneliness 

Winter is coming. At an Exeter-esque New England prep school circa the 1970s, students ready themselves for Christmas break. All but a handful of Barton students anticipate time with family, away from the academic demands of their coursework and the prying eyes of their hawkish professors. A small collection of eponymous “holdovers” are left behind, stranded at the snow-bound school for various reasons, forsaken under the tyrannical cross-eye of Dr. Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti). Amongst the abandoned is resident reprobate Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), a whip-smart smart-ass who’s a bit of a loner and has a troubled home life. There to ensure the collection is fed during their holiday stint is cafeteria manager Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who recently lost her son, a recent Barton graduate, in the Vietnam War. Director Alexander Payne (Election, Sideways, Nebraska), working from a fantastic script from long-time TV writer David Hemingson, finds every avenue to make these characters collide, collude, and refract one another in a dizzying display of heart, humanity, and humor. Read More

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‘THE CREATOR’ Updates Humanity With Technically Brilliant Original Sci-Fi

Good science fiction straddles the line between grappling with contemporary anxieties and reflecting on the essence of humanity, often through non-human characters. Movies such as Blade Runner, Ex Machina, Her, and even Terminator 2 explore the notion that our innate humanity transcends mere flesh and blood. Any truly meaningful exploration of humanity tends to exceed the boundaries of pure science and biology, delving into the metaphysical realms of the soul. Qualities like empathy, love, or even the ability to crack a good joke are as fundamentally human as opposable thumbs or the capacity to biologically reproduce. In one pivotal scene in Gareth Edwards’ stark and striking science fiction film The Creator, the best original sci-fi film in years, a group of American soldiers descend upon a village to extract the location of a concealed weapon. One of the soldier threatens to execute the dog of a trembling little girl unless she gives up information. It’s a stark reminder that humanity often eludes those who are, ostensibly, human themselves. Read More

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Take a Delightful Sojourn Into Thespian Hilarity at ‘THEATER CAMP’ 

In the vein of the best Christopher Guest mockumentaries, Theater Camp delivers a laugh-a-minute exploration of the inner workings of a fictitious child actor’s summer getaway, firmly rooted in reality. Destined to become a cult comedy classic, especially amongst the performance-inclined, this feature-length adaptation of the short film of the same name is crafted with a deep understanding of the theatrical world. Co-directed by Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman, both with theatrical backgrounds, the film expertly celebrates and satirizes the peculiarities of the theater world, infusing the humor with a delightful mix of specificity and personal touches. Read More

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Pastel-Plastered ‘BARBIE’ A Hilarious and Incisive Indictment of Modernity, Gender Roles

When Mattel recently announced that they would be launching their own extended cinematic universe (the Mattel Cinematic Universe, or MCU2), the internet groaned in exhausted unison. After all, what could be more unappealing in our era of modern moviemaking than yet another corporate attempt to coalesce blatant brand synergy and Hollywood’s necrotic trend of interconnectiveness, all to satisfy a company’s stakeholders and their own bottom line? From my very anecdotal research, this is simply not a thing that the movie-going public is clambering for.  No one is demanding a theatrical showcase where Hot Wheels, Sock ‘Em Robots, and Barbie team up in some kind of Avengers-style plot to take down the dastardly Hungry Hungry Hippos. And yet, Mattel is currently in some stage of development on a vast number of feature films based on just that with Hot Wheels, Magic 8 Ball, He-Man, Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, Polly Pocket, View-Master, American Girl, and the card game Uno all in some form of gestational pre-production. Theirs is a gloomy future that presupposes that Hollywood hits come purely from brand recognition – a future that forecasts the further sidelining of anything truly original, championing nostalgia and brand dominance over the creation of the new.  Read More

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‘SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE’ Weaves Vibrant Web of Creativity 

Five years after swinging the doors off the whole superhero multiverse thing, the highly anticipated Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse springs into action to deliver an arachnid-sized punch of fresh, inventive, and emotionally compelling spider-story that’s a true eye-popping wonder. Directed with electrifying visual panache by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson, our reunion with Miles Morales, Gwen Stacey, and a host of countless other spider-variants across an ever-expanding multiverse elevates the stakes in this second installment, ambitiously pushing the creative and narrative boundaries along the way. Read More

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Existential Dark Comedy ‘BEAU IS AFRAID’ is Unhinged, Overlong, Hysterical 

Reeling from the death of his iconoclast mother, an emotionally stunted, mentally ill man must traverse to her funeral in Ari Aster’s oft-indescribable dark comedy, Beau is Afraid. Aster frames the journey as if he were Homer himself, making for a melodramatic and depraved comedy of errors turned familial nightmare, stuffed to the brink of bursting with pure orchestrated chaos. Shocking, subversive, and very often hilariously funny, the genre-defying A24 feature stars Joaquin Phoenix as the titular Beau, a man for whom the pressures of the world are quite overwhelming. The film plays like What About Bob as remade by the director of Hereditary, but as an Oedipal fever dream. It’s a lot thematically. It’s a lot structurally. It’s a lot from a performance-perspective. It’s just a lot of movie. And most of it is pretty brilliant. Read More

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The Top Ten Best TV Shows of 2022

2022 might not have been a banner year for movies but boy did it rip on the small screen. One of the best years that I can recall in terms of what was offered on television, whittling my favorites down to just a list of ten was an extremely difficult task. Choosing just ten meant I had to jettison shows I genuinely adored like Apple TV+’s Irish dark comedy Bad Sisters, AMC’s seductive Interview with the Vampire retelling, Netflix’s epic fourth season of Stranger Things, and the second season of HBO’s hysterical Righteous Gemstones. In a lesser year, all likely would have earned a slot here.  Read More

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Brendan Fraser Offers the Performance of His Career in Devastating ‘THE WHALE’

Darren Aronofsky makes movies about people killing themselves. Sometimes unwittingly (Requiem for a Dream). Sometimes intentionally (The Wrestler). Sometimes in a fit of obsession (Black Swan). Sometimes as an act of salvation (π). In his heartbreaking weepy, The Whale, a show-stopping Brendan Fraser plays a morbidly obese man actively killing himself with calories. Aronofsky is no stranger to the slo-mo suicide drama and The Whale counts amongst his most heart-wrenching tragedies yet. Be prepared to ugly cry. 

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‘THE MENU’ Deliciously Satirizes the Cult of Kitchen

A Taste of Honey

Margot Mills (Anya Taylor-Joy) is not supposed to be dining out at Hawthorne. After all, a table at Hawthorne is amongst the most difficult reservations to land on the planet, held solely for the affluent, celebrities, and those with their own gravitational sphere of influence. From the moment she arrives at the esteemed remote island restaurant, Margot is out of place against the other diners. Esteemed critics, minor celebrities, finance bros – the usual suspects have gathered to taste the creations of Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes). And then there’s Margot. The worst part? She doesn’t even really like the food. Read More