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
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
That Spotlight feels like the epitome of a Law and Order episode genetically crossbred with a 70s-style political thriller is both its salvation and its glass ceiling. A real Indominus Rex of drama, Spotlight is a fleet-footed arcane beast attacking with precision and blunt deadly force. Its movements however are about as predictable as a 40-foot dinosaur. With its classical movie trappings, there’s other reasons it may be likened to a dinosaur. On the one hand, the formula is soothing in its familiarity – anyone who’s seen an episode of network television over the last half-century can immediately tap into the procedural structure at play – but in dealing up this very specific, very familiar hand, Spotlight also affixes a rev limiter to its emotional combustion engine. That it is then able to color in more shades than the finite Crayola 8 without devolving to sentimentality or cheap heroics is what allows Spotlight to stand tall. To peer out from the brush and declare its potency. To be the king of the jungle. Read More