Film Reviews, Interviews and Articles
’Til distance do us part. Not death. These are the vows of the slave – or “domestic” – in Krystin Ver Linden’s Alice. But death may always interfere. And distance – through space and through time – proves to be but an illusion. Alice (Keke Palmer) is a slave. She wants for liberation, daring for escape from the Spanish moss-covered Georgian plantation where she was raised. Freedom, it turns out, is just beyond her front door. All she needs is distance. Read More
The Hate U Give burns with a righteous anger. Director George Tillman Jr. and screenwriter Audrey Wells wrangle the searing social conscience and incisive melodrama of Angie Thomas’ best-selling novel into what is very likely the most meaningful film of 2018. Thought-provoking and morally challenging, beautifully acted and poignantly directed, THUG is a moving, necessary, and often hilarious, rarity; a mainstream, race-relations pop-art primal scream whose vital message is only intensified by its raw watchability. Read More
At its core John Wick is pornography. Grade-A, uncut violence porn. Cinematic gun-fu meant to boner pop action junkies looking to get off at the theater. And that’s not a dig against the film. Many lesser films strive to achieve the kind of simple-minded, clear-eyed, uncluttered glory that defines John Wick and get caught up in unnecessary twists or lamebrained character subplots. John Wick proved the power of just shooting a shit load of bad guys in the head in the name of vengeance and it did so gleefully. Read More