First Cow It opens boldly, with three minutes of credits. Just white font on a black screen. When was the last time you saw that outside of a Woody Allen movie? Movies don’t have opening credits anymore because we don’t have the attention span for it. Or they think we don’t. Next, we get the…
My ongoing quest to write as many words about the films of 2020 as possible continues. If you’re interested, check out parts one, two, and three. 5. Sorry We Missed You I live in the country, where there’s a lot of space between houses. I also have five dogs who all need to be walked,…
10. Sound of Metal The impressive debut film from director Darius Marder is winning raves for its sound design, which replicates the experience of being hearing impaired, at various levels, for the viewer. Rightly so; it’s a neat trick, and it helps to immerse the viewer in the soul of its lead character. But when…
I was going to write a little something up here about the recent announcements by Warner Bros. and Disney that have, to many, put the future of film in doubt. I don’t share the fears of my colleagues. I’ve written before about cinema’s resilience. It has survived the Legion of Decency, the Red Scare, the…
What’s the purpose of film criticism? To explicate a movie’s meaning, to expound on how it fits into a director’s oeuvre, or to put the film in social context? Great criticism can do all three at once, but in my heart of hearts, I still think of my role as a consumer guide. I want…
This post contains mild spoilers for The Invisible Man. The guy in the row behind me was talking. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it was loud enough to distract me from the film. This was a screening for both press and the public, which meant that he likely didn’t know I was there…
There are very few laughs in Brad’s Status. This is by design. Contrary to its marketing, which pitches the Ben Stiller film as a cringe comedy about a father embarrassing his son on a trip to visit colleges, the sophomore directorial effort from Hollywood screenwriter Mike White is a dark, desperate affair. It’s a deeply…
You might have noticed this blog basically doesn’t exist anymore. When I started it five years ago, I was posting two or three times a week. Then I started getting published elsewhere, and my original posts here began to dwindle. These days, it is a repository for reviews no one has paid me to write…
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