We’re all the main characters of our own stories, but in other people’s stories the best we can hope for is a supporting role. In Free Guy, endearing lonely-heart bank teller Guy (Ryan Reynolds) learns he’s nothing more than a background character in the story he’s unwittingly a part of. When he decides to change […]
Beckett
After debuting on opening night at this year’s Locarno Film Festival, Beckett arrives on Netflix as another in a long line of films about ordinary men caught up in extraordinary circumstances. The movie takes obvious cues from ’70s thrillers like Three Days of the Condor and Hitchcock masterpieces like North by Northwest, yet director Ferdinando […]
CODA
CODA lives on the very thin and dangerous line between transcendent crowd-pleaser and overwhelming manipulation. In fact, its screenplay functions like a constant one-two punch, disarming the audience with a heavy dose of conventional schmaltz before delivering a blow of deeply resonant emotion. Its rapturous response at this year’s Sundance Film Festival – where it […]
Camp Wedding
Having a wedding can be a scream. A tongue-in-cheek tribute to old slasher films, Camp Wedding revolves around Mia – which is only fitting, because she thinks the whole world should revolve around her. A bridezilla on a mission, she’s planned a special destination-wedding for her nuptials. The only problem is, the destination she’s picked […]
The Suicide Squad
Maybe it’s just the source material? That’s one plausible conclusion to reach on the back end of The Suicide Squad, James Gunn’s quasi-sequel, quasi-reboot (rebooquel?) to the unmitigated disaster that was David Ayer’s 2016 Suicide Squad, since the new film falls prey to the same minefield that blew up the original. Mercifully, Gunn’s film at […]
Pig
We open on a green, misty forest somewhere in Oregon. Out there, isolated in the depths of the foliage, there sits a cabin, ramshackle and isolated, where we follow the apparent daily customs of a grizzled man…and his loyal pig. There’s a certain shabby enchantment to the environment, so removed from our everyday understanding of […]
When Today Ends
Every day, more than 3000 high school students attempt suicide. When Today Ends is the story of three of them. The suicide crisis among young people is a mental-health epidemic, and one that many novels and movies – like television’s controversial 13 Reasons Why – have explored. Michael Leoni, who directed and wrote this film, […]
Whirlybird
Whirlybird is a portrait documentary that operates on three different levels. First, it’s a sprawling chronicle of the rise of “eye-witness” news in 1980s Los Angeles. More acutely, it charts the use of helicopters as a primary tool of news organizations to capture and transmit live footage for sensationalistic stories. Most intriguingly, however, the film […]
6:45
Screams like old times… The horror film 6:45 uses what had been a fresh story-telling gimmick when Groundhog Day did it, but lately has begun to go a little stale: The time loop. Think Source Code, The Final Girls, Edge of Tomorrow, or Happy Death Day. The template is easy: Oh no, someone’s trying to […]
Caged
Sometimes the scariest thing of all is nothing. Literally. No person to talk to. No books to read. No changes, no surprises — nothing. Because that’s what solitary confinement is. And that is why it drives people mad. It’s also the story behind Caged, a taut new film that’s part character study, part mystery, part […]
12 Mighty Orphans
Just because something sounds corny, doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Or isn’t good. 12 Mighty Orphans plays like a lot of other inspirational sports movies. There’s a dedicated coach. A team of underdogs, facing personal challenges and met with public scorn. A drunken old man, a couple of villains and, in the end, some kind […]
Parallel Love: The Story of a Band Called Luxury
For some fans, rock-and-roll replaces religion. For the members of Luxury, it was the other way around. A beloved cult favorite of the early-’90s, the original four musicians — Glenn Black, Chris Foley, and brothers Lee and Jamey Bozeman – fired up fans with driving beats and dreamy lyrics. Then came a car crash. A […]
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Jungle Cruise
Jungle Cruise is the latest film based on a Disney theme park attraction, and fans will be delighted by the handful of obvious nods (puns, so many puns!) and Easter eggs (Dr. Albert Falls! Trader Sam!) referencing the iconic ride. If only the movie’s plot weren’t so convoluted and derivative. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra from […]
The Exchange
The Exchange centers on Tim Long (Ed Oxenbould) a teenager in small-town Canada in 1986 who chafes against his fellow residents’ lack of sophistication. This has resulted in an isolated, friendless existence where Tim would rather hang out with the curmudgeonly janitor at City Hall than kids his own age at the local hockey rink. […]
Ride the Eagle
Ride the Eagle is not a bad movie, but one that’s so aggressively mediocre that it starts to seem bad after a while. This very streamlined man-child-comes-of-age lark is so inoffensively relaxed in its perfunctory set-up and payoff that it’s difficult to loathe, but eventually the relaxed vibe starts to feel like coasting, at which […]
Nine Days
We are each the main character in our own story. And in life’s more chaotic moments, it’s easy to think we’re living through our own TV show. Moments of high drama flatten our spirits. Our embarrassments function like screwball comedy. Moments of unspeakable irony make us wonder who’s turning the screws. Each day is a […]
Old
There is a movie inside Old that flows organically out of its characters, driven by their fears, desires, and regrets, generating a clear-eyed and affecting metaphor for the speed with which life passes us by, and our inherent unwillingness to slow down long enough to savor every moment. It’s as eloquent a thematic underpinning as […]
This Is Not a War Story
In the movies, war is exciting and chaotic and inspiring, full of adventure and heroism and way-cool weapons. Well, as Talia Lugacy’s film warns us right from the start, This Is Not a War Story. Instead, this is a story about what happens after the war, when veterans come home. Many of them are wounded. […]
Space Jam: A New Legacy
The prevailing critical logic on Space Jam: A New Legacy is that it’s bad. And…yeah, that basically tracks. More intriguing than general derision, though, is exploring precisely how the film ended up in its current form, a melting pot of contradictory aims so dissonant that any chance at basic coherence was dashed at the conceptual […]
Trust
It’s hard to gain. It’s easy to lose. It’s almost impossible to get back. “Trust.” That’s the title, and topic, of a twisty new marital drama featuring Brooke and Owen, an attractive, successful, having-it-all Manhattan couple. He’s a local TV anchor on the rise. She’s just opened her own art gallery and signed a hot […]