Tag: Challenging – Well-Made

North Country

2/3 greatness + 1/3 pablum = North Country, which succeeds when focused on how our heroine survives the indignities of living inside the belly of working-class patriarchy. –November 30, 2024

Fast Food Nation

Turning journalism into fiction, Richard Linklater uses character wikis to explore our Fast Food Nation. The movie deserves more attention, but animal slaughter is hard to watch. –November 30, 2024

Kaboom

See Kaboom for Gregg Araki’s throw-everything-at-a-zero-budget story to see what sticks. Like beautiful naked people sharing end-of-times nightmares. –October 31, 2024

Jesus Camp

A horror movie about Christian nationalism, Jesus Camp investigates the religious indoctrination of children, noting very little regard for charity or kindness. –September 30, 2024

Noryang: The Sea of Death

Noryang: The Sea of Death ends a truth-adjacent historical trilogy about how South Korean turned back a Japanese invasion in the 1500s. Key point: SK had a stylish and daring admiral. –August 31, 2024

Fury

Squad movies matter when good acting meets a tough situation. Enter Fury, as unsentimental a depiction of war as Hollywood can imagine. –August 31, 2024

Civil War

Civil War does a great job framing vignettes of a fallen America. But it’s no good at suggesting how the eponymous conflict began or what follows. –July 31, 2024

The Decameron

Filthy and uplifting but dentally horrifying, The Decameron is a magazine-style Pasolini wonderment. –July 31, 2024

Targets

Place Boris Karloff as some version of himself inside a story about sniper violence and you get Target, a tour-de-force in low-cost, high-impact storytelling.  –June 30, 2024

Eating Raoul

Watching At the Movies is how I first heard about weird art. Eating Raoul is one such independent gem. Cue the meat grinder. –May 31, 2024

Klute

Klute explores how a kinky rich man hunts Jane Fonda. A frightening ’70s time capsule. –May 31, 2024

Blancanieves

Blancenieves is an update of Snow White. Its very existence as a black and white, silent film from 2012 that uses modern tools for nostalgic purposes is both impressive and annoying. –February 29, 2024

The Big Doll House

Take 1: The Big Doll House sits atop the convergence of breasts, blood, and nonsense. Long live the grindhouse! Take 2: From “The Hi-Lo Bro Show” podcast: This is the one where Richard refers to Martin Heidegger’s “The Origin of the Work of Art” and praises transgressive art, while Garrett remembers being a teen boy drawn… Continue reading The Big Doll House

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Much stranger than I anticipated, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is the one where Michael Cera does a Michael Cera impression inside a video game allegory as live action cartoon. –January 31, 2024

Lords of Dogtown

Lords of Dogtown is a biopic about how skateboarding caught on, and it made me think about the boys I avoided in my youth because they were trespasser-athletes inventing a sport I’m now too old to try. And I was right. –December 31, 2023

Leave No Trace

Leave No Trace explores freedom and independence, among other juicy bits, through the story of a single dad veteran with PTSD and the journey of his daughter into womanhood. –November 30, 2023

Grizzly Man

Don’t mess with nature is the message of Grizzly Man, in which a wild man-turned-bear’s meal gallivants across Alaska. –November 30, 2023

Primer

Take 1: Two dudes time travel in Primer, a shoestring-budgeted story of invention that impresses through jargon and nerd work. Take 2: It’s slow until the moment you realize you’re no longer sure who, or what, Primer is about. –October 31, 2024

Beau Travail

Great movies lists often include Beau Travail. It’s not as great as some argue, although it’s worth seeing what the fuss is about. –October 31, 2023

The Forest for the Trees

Imagine being idealistic and failing at everything. The Forest for the Trees is a cringe-binge flick for educators. –October 31, 2023

Showing Up

In Showing Up, Kelly Reichardt observes an arts school and the community around it. On-the-nose observations about self-involved creators will leave most viewers cold. –October 31, 2023

Lovesong

Lovesong is a Queer story within the norms of heterosexual family and marriage, and you’ll want to see these two young women avoid tragic stereotypes to end up happy. –October 31, 2023

Tsotsi

Ask yourself, “what’s the next right thing to do?” Tsotsi considers the question after a South African teenager steals a car with an infant inside it. Provocative and satisfying. –October 31, 2023

A History of Violence

Cronenberg does a slow burn in A History of Violence. It’s a lot of nothing, really, but the set pieces turn a hitman (aka Strider) back into a family man (aka Aragorn). –October 31, 2023

Titane

A girl gets hurt in a car accident. As an adult she murders people, has sex with a car, becomes pregnant, and gives birth to a hybrid child. I’m not making this up. See Titane? –October 31, 2023

Enter the Void

Gaspar Noé makes difficult movies. EX: Enter the Void, which features non-simulated sex, drug use, stylized camera work, Tokyo, and bad acting for close to three hours.  –September 30, 2023

Blackfish

Blackfish is about captive mammals that kill people. And you’ll believe they were justified. –September 30, 2023

Fruitvale Station

Michael B. Jordan became a star in Fruitvale Station, Ryan Coogler’s movie about Oscar Grant, a troubled young man trying to make good until he was killed by a transit cop. –September 30, 2023

Test Pattern

The politics of medical care collide with a rape story in Test Pattern, wherein a Black woman endures sexual assault, and her White boyfriend pushes her to visit a doctor. –August 31, 2023

Wendy and Lucy

Wendy and Lucy, like all of Kelly Reichardt’s works, is a story of struggle. Lucy is a wonderful dog-performer, but the story rests on Michelle Williams’s Wendy who can’t catch a break. –August 31, 2023

The Miseducation of Cameron Post

Conversion therapy seems bogus on its face. The Miseducation of Cameron Post shows us why in a touching, terrifying, and satisfying story of self-acceptance and found family. –August 31, 2023

Prisoners

Intense. Well-performed. Morally Ambiguous. Reactions brought to you from the makers of Prisoners. –August 31, 2023

Creep

The low budget mumblecore Creep is a good role model for filmmakers but also a bore. –April 30, 2023

Pulgasari

Pulgasari is an on-the-nose North Korean Kaiju movie-turned-metaphor about commoners battling a king. –April 30, 2023

The Last Temptation of Christ

I wanted to love The Last Temptation of Christ, but I don’t even like it, although it is impressive to watch the Big JC, in a dream sequence, become “just” a man. –March 31, 2023

Nekromantik

Germans can be bonkers, as in Nekromantik, where a necrophiliac explores his appetites through one of the most memorable and cringe-inducing “climaxes” ever. –February 28, 2023

Mad God

Phil Tippet worked for 30-years on his stop motion passion project Mad God, which consists of GI Joe dolls hiding from defecating cave trolls. Terribly memorable without making sense. –February 28, 2023

Megan Leavey

A troubled young woman channels angst into animal husbandry. Voila! Megan Leavey, in which Common mentors Kate Mara who enlivens this biopic with enough grit to score tears. –January 31, 2023

The Menu

Self-centered rich people deserve scorn while service workers deserve recognition. The Menu ratchets up the intensity through making rich folks into the meal. And you’ll laugh! –January 31, 2023

Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS

Shower after watching Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS. It’s so far away from being good that it becomes a meditation on taste and tolerance. Don’t forget the soap. –January 31, 2023

A Dangerous Method

Kira Knightley’s sexual behavior forces Carl Jung to seek Sigmund Freud and explore A Dangerous Method. Among Cronenberg’s best as a non-body horror biopic. –December 31, 2022

All Quiet on the Western Front

In the win column for All Quiet on the Western Front: brutal war violence in the trenches of WWI. In the loss column: so what? –December 31, 2022

Dragged Across Concrete

In one of Mel Gibson’s bids for atonement after various upsetting kerfuffles, he plays a white supremacist cop who robs bank robbers in Dragged Across Concrete, a showcase for conversation, and the violence works well, too. –December 31, 2022

Heat

I listened to an interview the Michael Mann and thought I should give his work a second look. Unfortunately, Heat is as empty of feeling as I remember, although it does look good. –November 30, 2022

Re-Animator

The severed head of an undead man gives head to a restrained naked woman. Re-Animator: awesomely bad-good with a side of viscera. –November 30, 2022

The Passion of the Christ

Mel Gibson, the filmmaker, is a pornographer. Just look at all the sprayed fluids in The Passion of the Christand notice how every pious message gets lost in so much agony. –November 30, 2022

Obsession

Sometimes I wonder how Brian De Palma got to be a great director when so many of his movies disappoint me. Example: Obsession. –November 30, 2022

The Wailing

A South Korean cop tries to protect his daughter from pure evil until she goes full Regan from The Exorcist. The Wailing is spooky as hell and worth seeing. –October 31, 2022

Million Dollar Baby

Million Dollar Baby is two movies folded into one, although the May-December friendship is far better than the boxing story that works Rocky-like to get folks in the door. –October 31, 2022

The Bad News Bears

The Bad News Bears shows awful adults making terrible children play little league baseball, circa 1976, after the fall of Saigon when our team loses, and we don’t know how to react. –October 31, 2022

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind spins around romantic messiness to deliver an often-touching, non-chronological, head scratcher starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. –September 30, 2022

Blind Beast

Blind Beast centers on a blind man who kidnaps a beautiful woman to sculpt her in heroic scale. Enter Stockholm Syndrome and BDSM game play before the pair sculpt and screw until they die. It’s an art school manifesto, and there are Mommy issues, too. –July 31, 2022

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Like Theodore Logan and Bill S. Preston, Esq., The Girl Who Leapt Through Time dramatizes consistency paradoxes when a girl time travels and falls in love. –July 31, 2022

Greetings

Greetings is early DeNiro + early DePalma = a Vietnam War era Manhattan walkabout with three draft dodgers making mischief. –June 30, 2022

Censor

Take 1: Making gross entertainment can be difficult. Censor shows us why as we follow along one censor who becomes a monster. Take 2: Part homage to 1980s slasher films, Censor soars when our heroine can’t discern reality from fantasy or memory. –September 30, 2024

Mandy

In Mandy, Nicolas Cage is a Vietnam Veteran, a lumberjack, and the husband of a woman killed by a religious cult. He hunts and eventually murders everyone involved to avenge his eponymous wife. –May 31, 2022

Another Round

What would happen if you stayed drunk all the time? And you were a schoolteacher? Another Roundwinningly explores the result. Be sure to watch through to Mads Mikkelsen’s dance into final credits. –May 31, 2022

Greaser’s Palace

RDJ is the seed of Robert Downey, Sr, one weird dude with a camera who made Greaser’s Palace, the Jesus-ish story of a drifter with healing powers who visits a western town, meets truly strange people, and walks on water. It stars the psychiatrist from M*A*S*H. –April 30, 2022

One Night in Miami…

A play-turned-movie with brilliant performances forms One Night in Miami…, the directorial debut of Regina King. Or: a series of conversations between Malcolm X, Cassius Clay, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke. See it for period details but remember the monologues. –April 30, 2022

First Cow

A rule from Western movies: two cowboys must pretend not to be in love and use bloodshed to cover up their suffering. First Cow plays with this template and settles on an inter-racial friendship concerned with making biscuits in 19th century Oregon. Must see? No. Worthwhile genre experiment? Oh, yes. –April 30, 2022

Ammonite

In a world owned by men, women sometimes look for “a room of one’s own.” Ammonite describes one such room, loosely based on the historical fossil hunter, Mary Anning, here conducting a love affair with the wife of a rich man who ignores them both. –March 31, 2022

The Farewell

Awkwafina learns that her Chinese Grandmother has terminal cancer. Then her extended family agrees to lie to Nana about her condition so they can all enjoy a wedding celebration as a last family reunion. And The Farewell really, really works.  –February 28, 2022

Red Rocket

Garrett Chaffin-Quiray and Ed Rosa reflect on the male member. –February 28, 2022

The Last Duel

Garrett Chaffin-Quiray and Ed Rosa think about Ridley Scott’s Late Middle Ages story about a woman seeking justice after surviving rape. –January 31, 2022

Bus 174

Poverty + Violence X Time = Tragedy: or, the story of Bus 174 that thoughtfully, vividly, and critically considers a real-life Brazilian bus hostage situation that ended terribly. –December 31, 2021

Lost in Translation

Scar Jo and Bill Murray nurture their May/December friendship in Lost in Translation, a wildly overpraised movie, then and now, although it has wonderful details. See: the leads falling asleep in a hotel bed. –December 31, 2021

The Power of the Dog

The Power of the Dog isn’t about canines or work divided by time. Instead, it’s another Jane Campion master class in male badness (albeit closeted male badness), period detail, and the natural world in austere bloom. –December 31, 2021

Repo Man

A cult film’s role model, Repo Man is a Reagan-era story of alien invaders bumping into punk rock, junk food, and working-class struggle in LA. Harry Dean Stanton steals his scenes, but what else is new? –November 30, 2021

Dune: Part One

Take 1: Dune: Part One echoes the greatness of Frank Herbert’s source novel. But it’s incomplete since any open-face sandwich without a filling is just some bread. Take 2: Dune: Part One cannot stand on its own with no sequel, but I did get to enthuse about Selusa Seconudus to my daughter who was smitten with Timothée… Continue reading Dune: Part One

28 Days Later

Spooky then, clairvoyant now, 28 Days Later changed the zombie game into a contest of speed, rather than lethargic shuffling, and centered on a lab developed airborne virus. Consider it a COVID primer.  –November 30, 2021

The Iron Lady

Garrett Chaffin-Quiray and Sheila Chaffin reflect on Peak Streep, or a mother/son study of womanhood. –September 30, 2021

Wise Blood

Brad Dourif isn’t often a lead because of his bulging eyes and bad teeth. In Wise Blood he’s a Godless preacher, and his strange little body serves this strange little movie well. –September 30, 2021

Promising Young Woman

Take 1: Garrett Chaffin-Quiray and Ed Rosa discuss the limits of an Oscar-winning screenplay.  Take 2: In a second look, I realized that Promising Young Woman is even more far-fetched (as a premise), less likeable (as a narrative), and less satisfying (as entertainment) than its several big ideas (female autonomy and sexual vengeance) deserve as art in… Continue reading Promising Young Woman

Playtime

Jacques Tati’s Playtime looks more like Chaplin than then-contemporary Godard, but it does take some re-adjustment to pace and purpose to find the sweet spot of pleasure. –June 30, 2021

Meek’s Cutoff

Meek’s Cutoff considers the slow, grinding work of crossing through Oregon in 1845 with women kept as wagon maids while their men folk fail to find their way. It’s lean, ambiguous, and occasionally stunning. –June 30, 2021

Ms. 45

Take 1: Ms. 45 is not the biography of Melania before she met the former POTUS. Take 2: From “The Hi-Lo Bro Show” podcast: “This is the one where Richard falls in love with a book, Garrett trips over teenage memories, and the HiLo Bros consider vigilantes. –May 30, 2021

Under the Skin

Take 1: Scar Jo has legions of fans because she is Black Widow. In 2013 she went indie with Under the Skin to play an alien who uses her body to seduce and hunt men. It’s not erotically charged, it’s super creepy, and it’s “good,” if you know what I mean. Take 2: From “The Hi-Lo Bro… Continue reading Under the Skin

Hold the Dark

Jeremy Saulnier knows how to create an oppressive mood with terrifically executed scenes of violence. But Hold the Dark isn’t a sensible story despite Jeffrey Wright’s presence and the prospect of wolf spirits animating Alaskans to do bad things. –April 30, 2021

The Outlaw Josey Wales

Take 1: “I always heard there were three kinds of suns in Kansas: sunshine, sunflowers, and sons-of-bitches.” Take 2: The Outlaw Josey Wales presents a bicentennial celebration as secessionist apology. Take 3: From “The Hi-Lo Bro Show” podcast: “This is the one where Richard recalls Bleeding Kansas, Garrett professes man-love for Clint, and revisionism is… Continue reading The Outlaw Josey Wales

Ushpizin

A faith-filled story of marriage and forgiveness, Ushpizin is a small-scale wonder about fidelity, truth, and Orthodox Judaism. Terrific. –January 31, 2021

The Babadook

Is The Babadook: (A) A sequel to The Exorcist. (B) An exploration of depression. (C) The story of a mother’s guilt wishing her child were dead. (D) Reason to keep from looking under your bed. (E) All of the above. –November 30, 2020

Da 5 Bloods

Chadwick Boseman died but that doesn’t make Da 5 Bloods any good, because it isn’t, even with Delroy Lindo and Clark Lewis who bring it hard. –October 31, 2020

1917

1917’s gimmick is an obnoxiously impressive single take about a British soldier trying to save his brother’s imperiled unit. That much gets you started, but a nervous daddy brings you home. –July 31, 2020

Annihilation

Take 1: You can see how Oscar Isaac is really handsome and Natalie Portman is really beautiful, right? Putting them into a FX-rich setting with a cast of mostly women warriors investigating a Matrix-y alien lifeforce in Annihilation should be a slam dunk. But it isn’t.  Take 2: In Annihilation, Oscar Isaac plays with a loop of intestine as… Continue reading Annihilation

The Girl with All the Gifts

Vampires used to be sex criminals. More recently, teen Goths in love. In The Girl with All the Gifts, a girl connects zombies with vampires, and it’s on-the-nose COVID when sneezing is the new act of terrorism. –June 30, 2020

Look Who’s Back

Back to the Future meets Downfall meets election night 2016. Look Who’s Back imagines Hitler surviving his bunker to turn up in modern Berlin. He’s a hit, and the movie plays like Monty Python until you think “Make America Great Again.” –May 31, 2020

Logan

When Professor X gets dementia, and when Wolverine develops cancer, who will save us? A girl with knuckle knifes, that’s who, meaning Logan is X-errific. –February 29, 2020

Elephant

Take 1: Gus Van Sant’s Elephant memorializes Columbine to make sense of children hunting children. There is no lesson and no uplift, just an attempt to make everyone seem like 3-D people, shooters included. Take 2: Columbine is a mononym for inexplicable violence. Elephant humanizes the context for mass school shooting events and hits hard after many circuitous minutes… Continue reading Elephant

Zardoz

In Zardoz Sean Connery wears a ponytail, red underpants, and knee-high boots. And that’s the sanest part of the movie that also features an aircraft in the shape of a floating head, lots of British conversational dithering, and Charlotte Rampling. Hubba hubba. –January 31, 2020

Bugsy Malone

British filmmaker Alan Parker thought it would be fun to cast children in a gangster movie. Bugsy Malone is the result, featuring Scott Baio and Jodie Foster with music by Paul Williams. And it’s terrible. And hard to avoid thinking about once seen. –December 31, 2019

To Live and Die in L.A.

“We’re going this way.” I like a movie where I see a man’s penis. Call it reflexive homoeroticism, but I interpret the gesture as an affront to standard taste, and I like it. When we see William Petersen’s penis in William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), it is the most necessary equipment imaginable in… Continue reading To Live and Die in L.A.

Drunktown’s Finest

Drunktown’s Finest is a Navajo transwoman’s kitchen sink realist take on coming-of-age on the Rez. It’s totally uneven, but how often do you see Native American life without cowboys shooting brown people before slugging whiskey? –November 30, 2019

The Irishman

It’s way too long, but The Irishman pulls off a decades-spanning story of male loyalty to the mob. I just wish the Irishman, himself, was more than DeNiro doing a mobster doing a DeNiro-mobster. My Gods, the production design. Wow! –November 30, 2019

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood

The Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood retcon of Tate/LaBianca isn’t for the faint of heart. Or anyone with ADHD. But the tension running through the ’60s backdrop as cover for Helter Skelter is palpable. And Brad Pitt was 53 when he shot his shirtless scene. Hubba-hubba. –August 31, 2019

Cry Baby

Cry-Baby is one of John Waters’s most “normal” movies. Look for Willem Dafoe chewing scenery with Iggy Pop in a bathtub. Also: enjoy the unrefined Ricki Lake, a non-XXX-and-mainstream-adjacent Traci Lords, and a young, young, young Johnny Depp in the lead. –August 31, 2019

Revenge

It’s hard to believe the human body carries as much blood as Revenge suggests is inside a single impaled, rape survivor-turned-avenger. When she attacks her assailants, they bleed a lot too. Is this French feminism or is this schlock? –July 31, 2019

Support the Girls

Mumble-core meets Hooters, or: Support the Girls, a tale of sports bar waitresses and their mother figure/manager (Regina Hall). The problem of work-place exploitation haunts the frame, which is focused, first and last, on doing an ethical job, no matter what. –July 31, 2019

The Raid 2

Stop what you’re doing and see The Raid 2. With talented martial artists, lots of set piece mayhem, and great stunt work, the movie hums, even as you squint through protracted bloodshed, bone breaks, and cruelty.  –July 31, 2019

Destroyer

Nicole Kidman does ugly-pretty in Destroyer, a somewhat confusing take on undercover detective work gone bad in a botched bank robbery. Bouncing through 15 years of story world makes the conclusion more lyrical, but is anything gained with this non-linear story? –July 31, 2019

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a motion capture experiment from 2001 featuring Ming Na and Alex Baldwin. When Na was on ER and Baldwin was narrator for Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. It isn’t good.  –June 30, 2019

Black Hawk Down

“Tonight, tuck my children in bed warmly. Tell them I love them. Then hug them for me, and give them both a kiss goodnight for daddy.” –May 31, 2019

Moulin Rouge!

“And then, one not-so-very special day, I went to my typewriter, I sat down, and I wrote our story. A story about a time, a story about a place, a story about the people. But above all things, a story about love. A love that will live forever.” –April 30, 2019

Fail State

Higher education is expensive. Many students do poorly, get into debt, and drop-out, and that’s a design feature of many for-profit schools. Read all about it in Tressie McMillan Cottom’s Lower Ed and/or watch Alexander Shebanow’s doc Fail State. –April 20, 2019

Miracle at St. Anna

Miracle at St. Anna has a scene where Black American soldiers cross a river to assault a Nazi position while listening to a Tokyo Rose-like broadcast of race criticism. It’s genius. The rest of the movie isn’t. –April 30, 2019

Stand Clear of the Closing Doors

An autistic boy gets lost in New York during a hurricane. Stand Clear of the Closing Door is immersion into the Autism spectrum, and it works because it doesn’t moralize or insult, plead or “make cute.” We simply want Ricky to get home safe, and so does his mother. –April 30, 2019stan

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner

“A film. A people. A legend.” Imagine seeing and hearing these hot button items in a single movie: full-frontal male nudity, extramarital sex, polygamy, rape, animal and child abuse, murder, frequent urination, and walrus heart tartare. Then combine these subjects with a presentation of modern Canada’s ancient aboriginal people and let the whole thing run… Continue reading Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner

Blast of Silence

I’d never heard of Blast of Silence before a friend shared it with me. It’s the story of a hitman with a moral reckoning, shot on location in New York City in the early 1960s. Not for all tastes, but a nice little gem that should be remembered. –December 31, 2018

Fargo

“There’s more to life than a little money, you know. Don’tcha know that?” The Joel Coen-directed Fargo (1996) is the story of a sad sack named Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy). He’s a husband and father, and he works at an Oldsmobile dealership where he’s leveraged the value of cars he doesn’t own with a bank that’s… Continue reading Fargo

Thank You for Your Service

“I’m not a hero.” Since 9/11 we’ve made a cultural fetish of celebrating the military. This effort takes the form of fundraisers, gratitude campaigns, and gold star political trophy-ism, all in the name of troop morale and patriotism. Everyone loves the uniformed trooper because the uniform signifies that the wearer is better, morally superior, and… Continue reading Thank You for Your Service

Widows

Widows sucks. Sure, it’s beautifully shot; Steve McQueen and Sean Bobbitt compose things well. Yes, watching Liam Neeson make out with Viola Davis is terrific. And Daniel Kaluuya is a marvel. But the plot is senseless drivel.  –November 30, 2018

Sherrybaby

“I got clean in prison. And I’ve been out for 4 days.”  According to Hollywood rumor Susan Sarandon once said that no woman can out-perform her own exposed bosom. It’s axiomatic; the attraction of movies is based on seeing things normally obscured from view, so the revelation of a naked body is often overwhelming. There… Continue reading Sherrybaby

American Promise

“Fourteen years in the making.” The idea of watching documentaries turns many people off. In fact, the number of blockbuster documentaries in history is short; only Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) has earned $100 million in box office receipts, compared to a minimum of 700 fictional feature-length blockbusters. Why is this the case? One reason is the… Continue reading American Promise

La Pointe Courte

“I wouldn’t have loved you if you were just like me.” The French New Wave generally describes a late 1950s to early 1960s movement of young filmmakers who rebelled against the established industry. Because New Wavers grew up in the 1940s, exposed to new ideas about art and politics, post-World War II, they viewed movies… Continue reading La Pointe Courte

22 July

Paul Greengrass makes impressive, morally-sensitive, exhausting movies. 22 July is about surviving the real-life, 2011 mass murder in Norway. It includes mutilated children, alt-right villainy, and a legal establishment that seeks justice when going John Wick is so much easier. –October 31, 2018

Red Hook Summer

“Isn’t Jesus Black?” Spike Lee is an American wunderkind-turned-aging master. He’s also completely bonkers, as in part thrilling, part frightening, and always hard to look away from. As a public personality closely associated with New York City, his movies often sprawl away from characters and into exegeses on socio-political problems. Consequently, his work straddles the… Continue reading Red Hook Summer

Mudbound

Dee Rees knows her business and Mary J. Blige can act. Mudbound is a story about living through the Jim Crowe South following WWII, but there is a happy ending, and the White people, for once, aren’t saviors, just people acting from privilege in deep, deep poverty. –September 30, 2018

Blindspotting

Daveed Diggs witnesses a police-involved murder in Blindspotting. Start it for the inter-racial friendship, but finish for the final confrontation, as our 3rd President rap-fights his way through not shooting someone dead. –August 30, 2018

Beatriz at Dinner

John Lithgow’s real estate developer terrorizes dinner guests while Salma Hayek’s saintly masseuse shows him up. Then she goes swimming. It’s Beatriz at Dinner. Funny, right? –August 30, 2018

I, Tonya

I remember watching small, muscular Tonya Harding skate, and feeling her WT aura. I, Tonya agrees, adding an intense central performance by Margot Robbie, a terrible mother in Allison Janney, and terrific honesty about the troublesome historical subject. –June 30, 2018

Seven Psychopaths

Seven Psychopaths is an insider story of how a screenwriter finishes a script. The point of the movie, though, is meeting the people that get in the way of his deadlines while serving him with the profane, aggressive, rat-a-tat monologues of Martin McDonagh. –May 31, 2018

Ravenous

An alternative Western set during the Mexican-American War, Ravenous asks the question: would you eat your platoon mates? Answer: in a stew. For restorative power. Because it tastes good and I’m hungry. –May 31, 2018

The Pillow Book

Ewan McGregor gets naked in The Pillow Book, another mind blower from Peter Greenaway that centers on erotic exploration, tattoo, and romance. The story is thin, but vignettes are terrific. –May 31, 2018

Half Nelson

Half Nelson is proof that Ryan Gosling can play ugly. I don’t mean physically ugly, of course; he’s a middle school teacher strung out on heroine with a wise-beyond-her-years girl student who won’t give up on his potential. –April 30, 2018

The Red Chapel

North Korea is mostly off-limits outsiders, so any glimpse into its social fabric is interesting. The Red Chapel is real-life agit prop built around two comedians, earlier adopted out of NK, now returning to it on a cultural exchange to satirize life inside an authoritarian state. –April 30, 2018

Born in Flames

Lizzie Borden was an axe murderer whose names was assumed by the filmmaker of Born in Flames, a feminist sci-fi story about anti-sexist agitation. Done on a shoestring, it’s a movie of big ideas and mixed craft that openly irritates people not on board the underlying ideology. –April 30, 2018

El Norte

Two Guatemalan kids head to America when government troops kill their parents. The journey is dangerous and miserable, and tragedy awaits them. El Norte: or why US immigration policy frequently harms needy immigrants. –April 30, 2018

Return

Linda Cardellini is a military reservist who returns home from the Middle East after her unit is called up. Unfortunately, the civilian world advanced without her, and she no longer fits in. Return is a slow burn that no one saw, but more people should. –April 30, 2018

The Handmaiden

The Handmaiden is a sumptuously designed period piece about men using women that are using other women to use men. And there’s a central lesbian relationship that’s very directly explored. Enjoy the costumes. Wince over plot reversals. Listen for clanging of metal balls. –April 30, 2018

Bone Tomahawk

Bone Tomahawk is a gory Western wherein a tribe of Native Americans menace a small White town with general savagery, so Kurt Russell organizes a posse to fight back. That’s where we learn what a bone tomahawk really is, as Russell shows his age, range, and a great mustache. –March 31, 2018

Brawl in Cell Block 99

Vince Vaughn is tall, which matters because he punches down into people throughout Brawl in Cell Block 99, a terrifically gory character study as cage fight. Note the story’s similarity to video game levelling up, and revel in the sound of cracked bones and yelps.  –March 31, 2018

In the Valley of Elah

Post 9/11 movies often defend American greatness. In the Valley of Elah does not follow suit, and it pulls something miraculous from the whodunit structure of Tommy Lee Jones helping Charlize Theron solve a case of PTSD-related madness. –March 31, 2018

Land of Mine

Post-VE Day 1945, German POW youths dug up landmines in Denmark before dying or repatriating. Land of Mine is about this true-to-life peacetime slavery. But the magic is watching a battle-hardened warden become fatherly and kind. –February 28, 2018

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Rockwell and Harrelson nearly walk away with Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Then Frances McDormand says, “My daughter Angela was murdered seven months ago. It seems to me the police department is too busy torturing black folk to solve actual crimes.” –February 28, 2018

Song of the South

Song of the South tells us, “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay / My, oh, my, what a wonderful way / To make Black people nothing, with songs that can say / Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay!” –February 28, 2018

The Salesman

Asghar Farhadi provides an antidote to Iranian cultural restriction with The Salesman, a study of marital difficulties after a couple survives home invasion while also performing Death of a Salesman in modern Tehran. Exquisitely wrought neo-neorealism. –January 31, 2018

"These are the words I said to you," sayeth the Curator, Garrett Chaffin-Quiray