Film Reviews, Interviews and Articles
Structured like a New Yorker zine and just as wryly smug and pandering to the self-proclaimed intelligentsia, The French Dispatch is an ego-driven misfire for visionary director Wes Anderson who has done little more than projectile vomit his signature quirk on the screen in thick gobs, forgetting to actually make a movie along the way. Read More
Leave it to a Chinese native to cut to the very soul of the American heartland. Inspired by Jessica Bruder’s 2017 nonfiction work “Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century,” Venice Film Festival Golden Lion winner Nomadland sees director Chloé Zhao (The Rider) sharpen her skill as an exposer of marginalized American truths. A ruminant tone-poem about frontierism and the warpath of capitalism on the old and aging, Nomadland uses the visual poetry of the American midwest as a backdrop for her story about Fern, a widowed gig-worker wandering the states in the run-down van she calls home. Read More
Bill Murray, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, Saoirse Ronan, Saoirse Ronan, Jason Schwartzman, Timothee Chalamet, Frances McDormand, Benecio del Toro, Bob Balaban, Jeff Goldblum, Elisabeth Moss, Tilda Swinton, Lea Seydoux, Owen Wilson, Henry Winkler, Rupert Friend, Jeffrey Wright, Tony Revolori. When you have Wes Anderson behind the camera, you know the cast is gonna be God-status but my lord is The French Dispatch absolutely stacked. This could quite honestly go down in history as one of the very best casts in history and they’ve joined Anderson to tell the tale of a fictional American newspaper in a fictional French city. Read More
Maestro of whimsy Wes Anderson returns to stop-motion animation nearly a decade after Fantastic Mr. Fox to tell a story of political corruption and grassroots rebellion starring a bunch of scruffy mutts and overzealous kiddos in the absolutely delightful Isle of Dogs. Draped in quirky Andersonisms, understated humor, and brassy real-world parallels, the auteur’s ninth film is an irreverent celebration of outsiders that’s steeped in Japanese culture and plopped within a dog-eat-dog political treatise on inclusion and the dangers of nationalism. Read More
There are many words you can’t say on a billboard but in Martin McDonagh’s darkly comic and borderline brilliant Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri calling out the local sheriff for failing to bring to justice a rapist, arsonist and murderer is fair game. At least from a legal standpoint. This is the set-up for a crime saga unlike any other, McDonagh’s film a foul-mouthed mystery brimming with colorful characters, its jet-black tone and surprising emotionality capable of causing fits of laughter and bouts of urgent somberness in what is one of the best films of 2017. Read More
The Coen Brothers’ Hail, Caesar! exists in some zany cinematic purgatory of indecisiveness. Their critique of 1950s Hollywood dwells in an occasionally bemusing middle ground; that is, it can’t decide whether it wants to be a skewering of or a love letter to the golden era of tinsel town. Those who’ve found solace in the bewilderingly esoteric arms of A Serious Man or the bombast of The Hudsucker Proxy will likely concede Hail, Caesar! as a new coming for the seriocomic duo but I like my Coen’s like I like my coffee and Hail, Caesar!’s semi-satirical goofball makeup couldn’t be further from the blackest of comedy that defines the brothers’ greatest ventures. Read More
Have you ever wondered what Channing Tatum would look like in a little sailors outfit? Wonder no more. The trailer for Hail, Caesar!, the newest comedy from Joel and Ethan Coen, has arrived and it looks nothing short of glorious (and features Tatum dressed oh-so-preciously) . Hail, Caesar! tells the story of a tentpole movie production halted when its leading man (George Clooney) is kidnapped and held for ransom. The sure-to-be winning picture is brimming with talent; in addition to Tatum and Clooney, Josh Brolin, Tilda Swinton, Scarlett Johansson, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill and Frances McDormand are set to star with cinematography provided by all-star DP Roger Deakins. Read More