Earlier this year, Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings stated a desire to “beat Disney in family animation.” So it’s no surprise in the effort to meet that goal the streamer enlisted one of Disney’s most renowned animators, Glen Keane, to make his feature directorial debut with Over the Moon. However, the movie has many elements that […]
Chasing Einstein
Even nearly 70 years after his death, Albert Einstein is still likely to be one of the top answers (along with, presumably, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye the Science Guy) if the average person is asked to name a famous scientist. But there have been decades of further advancement on Einstein’s theories by dozens […]
Clouds
Actor turned director Justin Baldoni must really have a thing for the love lives of terminally ill teens, which have been the subject of both of his feature films thus far. After making his directorial debut with the 2019 weepie Five Feet Apart, about a romance between two teens with cystic fibrosis, Baldoni returns with […]
Spark: A Burning Man Story
Even back in 2012, the annual Burning Man gathering (organizers prefer not to call it a “festival”) was experiencing serious growing pains, and the event has only gotten bigger and more unwieldy since then. It’s also gotten much more famous and influential, and the 2013 documentary Spark: A Burning Man Story provides an interesting snapshot of […]
The War With Grandpa
The sight of Robert De Niro debasing himself in a moronic slapstick comedy barely even evokes a response anymore, so his presence in The War With Grandpa isn’t offensive, just depressing. Based on a 1984 novel by Robert Kimmel Smith, The War With Grandpa features De Niro in grumpy old man mode as Ed, an […]
Yellow Rose
Rose Garcia (Eva Noblezada) is a teenager growing up in Austin, Texas, with a love for country music and a dream of writing and performing her own country songs. She’s also an illegal immigrant from the Philippines, brought over to the U.S. by her mother Priscilla (Princess Punzalan) when she was a small child, living […]
Give or Take
An aimless man in his 30s leaves the big city where he works at a corporate job and heads back to his small hometown for the funeral of a close family member. There, he reconnects with old friends, reassesses his priorities and learns to appreciate a quieter, slower way of life. It’s the plot of […]
On the Rocks
Sofia Coppola may have downgraded her ambitions with her seventh feature, On the Rocks, but that doesn’t mean she’s come close to selling out. A gentle comedy about the rocky relationship between a father and daughter, On the Rocks feels like a personal story, and there’s a temptation to search for a reflection of Coppola’s relationship […]
Possessor
David Cronenberg hasn’t made a movie since 2014’s Maps to the Stars, but his son Brandon has taken up his legacy of calculated, disturbing body horror in the intervening years. Brandon Cronenberg’s new film Possessor feels very much like the kind of movie his dad would have made, while also forging its own distinct path. […]
Antebellum
For its first 40 minutes or so, Antebellum is virtually indistinguishable from a standard historical drama about the Civil War-era South. On a cotton plantation somewhere in the South, there are cruel masters who berate and abuse the slaves, while the slaves conspire in hushed whispers with each other to plan an escape that may […]
The Broken Hearts Gallery
The current resurgence in romantic comedies has come mainly via streaming services, especially Netflix, which has developed a familiar house style with pleasant, engaging movies like Set It Up and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. So it’s a little odd to see small-scale romantic comedy The Broken Hearts Gallery get a full theatrical […]
Northwood Pie
Some films are content to give you a slice of life. Northwood Pie gives you the whole greasy pizza. Set in relentlessly normal Irvine, Calif., it’s the amiable, slightly stoned story of a gang of low-achieving friends who spend their days avoiding work at the local pizzeria and cutting class at the nearby community college. […]
Shooting Heroin
When you see what most “faith-based” films turn out like, it’s a sin. Modestly budgeted indies made for church-going audiences, their aims are small and their methods predictable. They star a publicly devout actor. They have a central tragedy, which makes the hero question his faith. And then he finds it again, and all is […]
Unprescribed
They left America to wage a war. They came home to find another one. America’s battlefield medicine has come a long way since the last generation of warriors. But the irony is that the men and women who now survive traumatic injuries often survive with emotional trauma, too. And when it comes to treating those […]
Bill & Ted Face the Music
It’s been nearly 30 years since we saw heavy metal doofuses Bill and Ted onscreen, and while 1989’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure has grown into a genuine classic (and 1991’s Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey has a substantial following, too), that’s no guarantee that a return for these characters in middle age would make […]
The Personal History of David Copperfield
It’s unlikely that anyone would ever characterize a Charles Dickens novel as breezy, but that’s exactly the impression that comes from Armando Iannucci’s Dickens adaptation The Personal History of David Copperfield. Iannucci and co-writer Simon Blackwell attempt to include as much of Dickens’ 800-plus-page novel as possible into a two-hour film, turning the sprawling epic […]
Love & Debt
It is a risky prospect to make a film about debt collection. What pleasure is there in seeing people who owe money suffer—or seeing debt collectors possibly destroy families? Love & Debt shows both sides as Travis (Casey Abrams) gets his first case at a debt collection agency to recover approximately $80,000 from Henry Warner […]
I Used to Go Here
For I Used to Go Here’s Kate Conklin (Gillian Jacobs), life has not turned out the way that she hoped that it would. She’s broken up with her fiancé (even as an entire box of wedding invitations arrives at her apartment), and while her first novel has just been released, sales and reviews are not […]
Toss It
The romantic comedy Toss It starts with someone flipping a coin – but ultimately it’s the audience that’s the loser. The lead actress is unappealingly cold. The script is overly talky. And the director seems unsure of how to help the star, or the screenwriter, solve their problems. Of course, the fact that the director […]
Burning Dog
Video games are not movies, but a lot of movie makers haven’t gotten the message. Every so often, directors still try to turn at-home entertainment into an in-theater event. Problem is, they’re different things meant for different audiences. Film fans love movies that tell them a story. Gamers like to tell the story themselves. Burning […]