Take the helplessness you feel when you’re in a foreign country but don’t speak the language and add in an inattentive husband and a possible stalker and you have a formula for a very bad trip abroad. In Watcher, this is Julia’s life now. Stranded in Bucharest, Romania, the unemployed actress and wife to an ambitious marketer tries her best to grin and bear the transition. But every night, she sneaks a peek out the curtains of her apartment. And every night, a man across the street watches her back. Julia’s sanity and marriage unfurl as the specter of being watched grows larger and more dangerous with each passing day. Read More
Sundance ’22: Cringe Turns Utterly Chilling in Knockout Psychological Horror ‘SPEAK NO EVIL’
There are certain moments in life when everything in our body tells us to run away from a situation but we still hesitate because we want to be polite. Maybe it’s a weird conversation with a glassy-eyed drunk we got trapped in at a fundraiser. Or a flirtation turned suddenly uncomfortable with some girl we met at a bar. We don’t want to hurt the feelings of strangers. We stay out of some bizarre (and overly trusting) Western societal norm. We afford the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes to those who have not earned it. In Speak No Evil, all kinds of instinctual alarms go off but no one is paying attention to their instinct. They’re playing right into the hands of societal expectation – and then they are exploited. Read More
Sundance ’22: ‘KLONDIKE’ a Funereal Drama About Ground-Level Russia-Ukraine Conflict
July 17, 2014. Irka (Oksana Cherkashyna) and Tolik (Sergey Shadrin) live humbly in the Ukraine border town of the Donetsk, an Eastern region of disputed territory during the dawn of the Russian-Ukraine Donbas war in Klondike. They’re expecting a child. The film opens as the couple discuss birthing plans and getting somewhere safe to deliver the baby in voice over. Jolting viewers out of even one moment of calm, an explosion rips through the house, leveling a wall of their abode clean off. Commercial airline MH17 has just been shot down right in their front yard. Read More
Sundance ’22: ‘FRESH’ a Horrific Meat-Cute That Takes a Bites out of Modern Dating
A one-of-a-kind allegorical delicacy, Fresh revels in taboo subjects to poke fun at the stomach-churning appetites of the modern dating world. A delirious mash-up of cheesy romance and body horror shlock, the debut film from Mimi Cave begins in deliciously grotesque fashion, showing flashes of both American Psycho and Martyrs as her devilish meat-cute puts a dark spin on the idea of “finding the right guy”. Overnight, chemistry and flirtation turns to imprisonment and cannibalism, giving new meaning to the phrase “eating butt.” Read More
Sundance ’22: ‘EMERGENCY’ Effectively Mixes ‘Superbad’, ‘Blindspotting’
A perfect way to officially launch the Sundance 2022, Emergency reimagines the Superbad formula through the lens of Blindspotting. Striking a well-oiled balance between drama and comedy, this riff on the “best friends on the verge of graduation” goes down some pretty harrowing rabbit holes, rarely pulling its punches as it explores prescient themes of racism, brotherhood, and Black excellence. Smartly-written, director Carey Williams’ killer debut explores black friendship and fraternity as straight-laced Kunle (Donald Watkins) and party animal Sean (RJ Cyler) prepare for a wild night of partying that goes off the rails in ways they never imagined. Read More
‘SCREAM’ Takes a Stab at “Requels” with Deadly Precision
Scream is back. And with a new Ghostface (or two) comes a biting deconstruction of not just the long-standing slasher franchise, or the nature of “requels” (a term coined in this very film), or the horror genre in general, but the movie industry writ large. Many films of recent years have tried to capture the imagination of audiences by commentating on their own storied legacy – most recently with both The Matrix: Resurrections and Spider-Man: No Way Home – but none have done it with quite as sharp a wit or a curvaceous a blade as the most recent Scream. Tapping into the meta repartee that franchise architect Wes Craven approached the material with from the very get go, this fifth installment of the 90s-born slasher whodunnit is as razor-sharp and bloody glorious as ever. Most importantly, it’s just a hell of a lot of fun. Read More
The Best TV Shows of 2021
As the wide world of film shook and shuttered, trying to get its feet back under it while navigating the constant challenge of the pandemic, television entered a new golden age. The silver screen may have faded but the small screen burned brighter than ever. Last year, I listed my 25 favorite television series of the year and while many greats remain amongst my favorite, the amount of new amazing series in 2021 was blistering. Rather than diving in again on why something was a favorite in 2021, I mostly focused on newer shows, limited series, and series that made a triumphant return in 2021. So while I love comedies like What We Do in the Shadows (brilliant, still), Curb Your Enthusiasm (incredible, again), Ted Lasso (which proved slightly more dour in its second season, though hopeful and kind to its core), and Pen15 (creative and cringe as ever), they won’t appear on this list because I already said my piece on them last year. Read More
Top Ten Films of 2021
What a year it’s been. In some capacities, post-pandemic life began to creep back to normal with the aid of vaccines. So too did the global box office. But multiple variants spooked people into skipping out of movies in theaters as a fundamental shift to the industry took shape. Day and date releases became more prevalent as the economics of a new movie market unfurled. A misleading rescue beacon, Spider-Man: No Way Home just delivered the best receipts of the entire 2020/2021 but that level of resurgent success seemed reserved exclusively for superhero content. No adult-skewing cinema has fared nearly as well. Read More
Spoiler Alert: ‘THE MATRIX: RESURRECTIONS’ Is Not Good
The spoon may not exist but after watching this third Matrix sequel, you’d wish it didn’t either. A numbing retread of past Matrix antics fastened onto an exasperatingly dull attempt at a revival, The Matrix: Resurrections is a bizarre, lumbering attempt to breath one final breathe into a franchise that redefined science-fiction action when it was first released in 1999. If the intention of this clunker is to make you appreciate the other sequels, job very well done. I take back every bad thing I ever had to say about Reloaded and even Revolutions. The Matrix: Resurrections is the antithesis of revolutionary, too busy looking back to take a step forward without stumbling and landing flat on its face. Read More
‘SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME’ and The Multiverse of Monsters
Undisputedly the superhero event of the year, Spider-Man: No Way Home is a breakneck collision of past and present that explores the generational legacy of Spider-Man in unrelentingly entertaining fashion. The script from Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers wastes zero time, hitting the ground running as No Way Home picks up precisely where the previous endeavor, Far From Home, left off: with Peter Parker’s (Tom Holland) identity revealed to the world by Daily Bugle alt-news tyrant J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons). Desperate to undo the fallout from his being unmasked, Peter turns to Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to conjure up an amnesia spell that would make the world forget his identity. Read More