Movie Reviews (Chronological)
The Quarry: murder, scripture, and Southern Gothic style
Set in a world rich with echoes of Flannery O’Connor and Cormac McCarthy, The Quarry‘s story of a fake preacher and a violent sheriff raises hard questions about the possibility of redemption in a world as ruined as this one.
It’s Groundhog Day in Palm Springs
Palm Springs plays with a familiar formula, and its innovations are diminished by its crassness and the flimsiness of its “insights.”
Da 3 Movies in Da 5 Bloods
Spike Lee’s latest multi-tasking movie is a ferocious work of passion and Gospel that succeeds in spite of its stumbles and dissonant styles.
Extra Ordinary Ghost-busting in Ireland
The second big paranormal-thriller surprise of the summer (after The Vast of Night), Extra Ordinary is the funniest thing I’ve seen all year.
Catching Up With The Bling Ring
When those that qualify as the 2% won’t rest until they’ve stolen their way into the 1% — The Bling Ring is a thoughtful and prophetic portrait of a generation obsessed with becoming media gods, exploiting social justice slogans in service of their own social-media avatars.
Why The Vast of Night hits close to home
Like 2019’s Prospect, Amazon’s new sci-fi thriller The Vast of Night makes magic with modest resources and gives us the two most memorable investigators of the paranormal since Mulder and Scully first argued.
Predators in academia: Shirley’s search for lost girls
Shirley, driven by great performances from Elizabeth Moss and Michael Stuhlbarg, is dark, strange, and unnervingly wise.
Raised by 20th Century Women
I recently caught up with director Mike Mills’s film 20th Century Women and wished I’d seen it earlier to include it in my 2016 Favorites list.
Onward’s Frivolous Fantasy
Looking for an escape from sheltering-at-home familiarity, I turned to America’s most reliable animation studio. But Pixar’s Onward remains stuck in uninspired tropes.
Catching Up With Cléo from 5 to 7
In which I begin posting thoughts on the movies I’m watching during the 2020 season of COVID-19 lockdown. First up? A beloved French New Wave masterpiece by Agnes Varda.