Two new essays in one week: The Enlightened Replicant and the Liberated Marionette
New writing is heating up my laptop these days. I have two new essays — my first ever contribution to my favorite…
Where Did My Community Go? Marcel the Shell Offers Insight at The Rabbit Room
After posting my initial review of Marcel the Shell With Shoes One here at Looking Closer, I've contributed a second…
In Roger Michell’s final film*, Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren are in trouble with the law
Roger Michell's final film* is an endearing epilogue to an impressive career, but even the headliners Jim Broadbent and…
Mrs. Harris goes to the land of pure imagination
The great Leslie Manville proves that she can make even a cloying crowdpleaser like this worth watching. You might find…
Moretz is magnificent as the gremlin-fighting Maude
This isn't a one-woman show, but it's close: Chloë Grace Moretz gives this cartoonish action film a far stronger…
Hilarity and hardship: an unforgettable Iranian road movie
The son of the great Jafar Panahi has become a promising filmmaker himself. Panah Panahi's first movie takes backroads…
My multi-viewings of the year’s best multi-verse movie
A conversation between moviegoers Cravis Frankly and Jeffrey Overstreet about the most complicated and most exciting…
Making Marcel the Shell my new mentor…
Marcel is the kind of film that I suspect Jim Henson would have loved: It's childlike, playful, hopeful and wise — and…
Emergency is not what it looks like
Can this friendship survive the worst night ever? Kunle and Sean — and, to a degree, the cannabis-clouded Carlos — are…
Cronenberg’s performance-art surgery
In Cronenberg's latest sci-fi nightmare, human bodies are evolving and surgeons are bringing brand new organs out into…
Maverick and Me: Part Two
As an action movie, Top Gun: Maverick is compelling entertainment. As art, it exists more as a celebration of Tom…
Maverick and Me: Part One
Before diving fast and furious into a review of Top Gun: Maverick, I should probably provide some personal history…
Weekender: New Twitter. Doctor Strange’s Multiverse. Faith in musicals. SDG on The Northman.
Looking Closer has a new Twitter account! Also: Here are my first impressions of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of…
Arcade Fire’s big noise is back, and so are the sermons
Arcade Fire's seven-track tapestry of anxiety, alienation, and disillusionment sounds epic, but it can be a bit…
Catch the rare treasure Petite Maman on the big screen if you can
Like Jacques Doillon's Ponette and John Sayles's The Secret of Roan Inish, Céline Sciamma's new film is about very…
Conflicted about The Northman’s conflict
With full respect for arguments to the contrary, I'm of a mind to say that Robert Eggers's The Northman, while very…
Weekender: Allison Russell, Philip Yancey, and Enchanted Journey II: Ex-vangelical Boogaloo
In this edition of The Weekender, a miscellany of podcast highlights, insights on faith and race, a prayer worth…
Alas, it may be too late for you to see one of 2022’s most enthralling cinematic experiences
The greatest films are becoming the most difficult to see in a theater. Memoria — the third transcendent cinematic…