Movie Reviews (Chronological)
Why I find “Passing” a profoundly “unrelatable” film
In a season of sprawling epics and extravagant spectacle, Rebecca Hall’s directorial debut is one of the year’s finest exceptions: a quiet, focused film that knows exactly what it wants to be and efficiently achieves it.
Welcome to Wes Andersonia, Part 1: My first two visits to The French Dispatch
Wes Anderson’s devoting every resource at his disposal to realizing grander visions. The results are more like museums than paintings, more like restaurants than mere meals.
Mass gives us a close-up of one of the hardest conversations ever imagined
I’m hard-pressed to think of a more difficult conversation I’ve seen at the movies. Some will discover it, look up the 2021 Oscars, and wonder: Why was this overlooked?
Cannes-winner can’t live up to the hype
This year’s top prize at the Cannes film festival is an audacious, lurid circus that leaves me not only disappointed but actually regretting the experience.
Soderbergh is suddenly back on his ‘A’-game with No Sudden Move
Soderbergh is back doing what he does best — scattering criminals like billiard balls, and then knocking down one strong scene after another. He may not play a perfect game here, but this is one of his best in many years.
Quo vadis, Aida? (2021)
How does it make any sense to give our attention to the dramatization of a society’s violent overthrow while we we are watching it happen in the real world, right now, either elsewhere in the world or here, either swiftly or in slow motion? Nevertheless, this might be the best time for us to watch Quo vadis, Aida? and open our imaginations to its characters.
The Inner Language of Wolfwalkers – a guest post by Micah Rickard
Special guest reviewer Micah Rickard offers some reflections on a very tricky matter that Cartoon Saloon’s Wolfwalkers handles particularly well.
In Cowboys, a father and child head for the hills to escape the simplistic opinions of others
You know the old saying about where a road “paved with good intentions” can lead. And it’s true. I’ve watched passionate, purposeful, principled artists pour their lives and life savings into projects that, while meaningful for the artists,...
Nicolas Cage the Great returns in what may be 2021’s most memorable surprise
Watch for the moment in Michael Sarnoski’s film Pig when Robin — a formidable, Jesus-bearded truffle hunter living as a recluse in the woods outside of Portland, Oregon — walks through a fancy downtown restaurant like Obi-Wan Kenobi making his way to the heart...
A Quiet Place Part II is loud with familiar summer movie thrills
Krasinski’s follow-up to his smash-hit sci-fi thriller works like a charm — mostly because it’s made up of familiar sequences that worked like a charm in better movies.