A second review requested by David Nemes, with thanks for contributing twice to the Second Quinquennial Antagony & Ecstasy ACS Fundraiser. Specifically, he asked me to review a film from this list that I wanted to revisit, for any reason. With a decade of hindsight, I’ve completed flipped my opinion on about one-third of those […]
As a rule, I try very hard not to write film reviews of the “consumer report” style, but sometimes it’s important to look a potential ticket-buyer square in the eye, grab them firmly by the shoulders, and state clearly and urgently, “it’s important that you know this”. And there is something that it’s important for […]
Many years from now, when they are making the list of the great War on Terror thrillers, they will of course start with Zero Dark Thirty, and until recently, that’s where they could have ended, too. Now we have a second, sneaking into the world with virtually no fanfare other than a 2015 Toronto International […]
There’s something deliciously off-kilter about folding a story about the abuse and genocide of indigenous South American cultures into what amounts to a mismatched buddy comedy (minus any jokes), and for that alone, Embrace of the Serpent – Colombia’s first-ever nominee in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Oscars – would deserve our […]
One of the few brand-name directors of animated features in the 21st Century, Hosoda Mamoru got that way through a most curious combination of radicalism and comforting familiarity. His 2006 international breakthrough, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, is a perfect example: it’s a nervy time-travel sci-fi tale of a sort that seemed positively revolutionary […]
“Who’s that then?” “I dunno, must be a king.” “Why?” “He hasn’t got shit all over him.” –Monty Python and the Holy Grail There is much shit in Hard to Be a God. That’s by no means the film’s most salient aspect, but it’s probably the thing that’s hardest to stop noticing, once you start. […]
The most upsetting thing about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – outside of a clunky title which draws attention to everything worst about the movie – isn’t that it’s outlandishly bad (worse tentpole movies are released to higher Rotten Tomato scores every summer). What’s truly upsetting about it is that an enormous proportion of […]
