Discovering good movies, one bad movie at a time

The Fabelmans is full of striking images. It is, in a sense, a film about striking images. Perhaps the most striking of all, to me, comes somewhat far into the movie – it is maybe even a spoiler to talk about it. But I’m not sure how much you can “spoil” The Fabelmans: the story […]

I don’t think it’s a good habit to get into to take account of the advertising campaign materials – part of what we call “paratexts” in the thinking-too-hard business – as part of a film review, but in the special case of Armageddon Time, I will make an exception. The film’s poster, which you can […]

Rosaline, in every way, almost gets there. It almost pulls off an anachronistic attitude that feels sly and purposeful, rather than tonally muddled and wannabe-hip. It almost gives its heroine enough personality to evoke a whole human being. It almost indulges in a fun, twisty romantic sabotage plot; then, turning the tables, it almost makes […]

To wrap up the summer movie season, we’ll be taking an historical tour of the Hollywood blockbuster by examining an older film that is in some way a spiritual precursor to a wide-release film from the last few weeks. From August 12: Mack & Rita explores the comedic potentials of what happens when a woman […]

It’s in the nature of adolescence to rebel—against your parents, against your background, against anything that defines you in a way that doesn’t match your evolving self-image. Every coming-of-age story sees its protagonist reject the status quo and seek out something unfamiliar and/or expressly forbidden. Some go further than others, though, and Funny Pages—the directorial debut […]

In the three-and-a-half decades since the release of the exquisitely focused and gnarly Predator, a high point in the careers of both director John McTiernan and star Arnold Schwarzenegger, that film’s sequels and spin-offs have all been built around complicated, cumbersome variations on the misguided quest, “you wanted more world-building, right? Just tons and tons […]

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On could be described as a “reprieve.” This is a kind, gentle, barely-feature-length fable that asks exactly two things of the viewer: find the one-inch-tall talking shell cute, and hope that the one-inch-tall talking shell is ultimately reunited with his lost shell family. I did what I was asked, feeling […]

Categories: animation, coming-of-age

Studio 4°C doesn’t have the same name recognition of the best-known and best-loved Japanese animation studios in the West, which I imagine is at least in part because its best and boldest work is at this point well over a decade in the past. But it have some irresistibly interesting credits to their name, with […]

Turning Red represents an auspicious moment for Pixar Animation Studios: its 25th feature-length film, 27 years after inventing the fully-rendered 3-D computer-animated feature with Toy Story. Many of those 25 features are medium-redefining masterpieces, like Toy Story itself, or WALL·E. An unfortunately large number of them, at this point, are thudding mediocrities, like, I am […]

The entity that is MTV has obviously changed considerably since the channel first killed the radio star in 1981. While anyone whose birth year starts with a “2” might only know it for reality series or teen soaps, MTV’s historical prominence as a conduit between music and mainstream culture cannot be overstated. While their previous […]

The Worst Person in the World, according to the film of that title, is a certain young woman living in Oslo, named Julie (Renate Reinsve). We spend a few years with her, from her late 20s to her early 30s, and one important thing is learned in those years, twice: first, we learn that Julie […]

Insofar as we should always sit up and take notice when a major film director produces an obviously intimate and personal work, then yes, we should absolute bow in the direction of Licorice Pizza. The ninth feature directed by Paul Thomas Anderson – who is, by any measure, a major director – isn’t a work […]