It can be exceptionally difficult to judge a filmmaker’s intent. What viewers see is not intent, but the result of that intent. This result may be exactly what the filmmaker wanted to offer up, or it may be something wholly… Read More ›
review
Movie Review: “The Racer” (2020)
If you haven’t heard of Kieron J. Walsh’s new movie, “The Racer,” you may be forgiven. It had been due to appear at this year’s cancelled SXSW, released in mid-September. With the world the way it is this year, it… Read More ›
Movie Review: “The Glorias”
It is entirely possible that at some point in the near future, someone who comes to this website to take a look at the film reviews and listen to the podcasts will think that we exist, at least at the… Read More ›
Movie Review: “The Boys in the Band” (2020)
On a fairly regular basis, plays that have been made into movies still feel like plays. It is partially the limited number of locations used, but it is much more the feel of the dialogue. A wiser person would put… Read More ›
Movie Review: “The Trial of the Chicago 7”
If you follow the news you will hear a lot of people—some perhaps well meaning and some most definitely not—suggest that the protests that have taken place in this country this summer are wrong. They will tell you that the… Read More ›
Movie Review: “Kajillionaire”
It is a truly impressive feat for a filmmaker to perfectly close the story they are telling just before the credits roll and, at the exact same second, have an audience truly care about what happens next. For such a… Read More ›
Movie Review: “Antebellum”
(editor’s note: I have done my best to avoid spoilers in the below, but can’t swear that there aren’t any.) Not for the first, it is important to say that there is a difference between raising important ideas in a… Read More ›
Movie Review: “The Nest” (2020)
Written and directed by Sean Durkin, “The Nest” opens by offering a typical day in the life of one family in the 1980s. We get the husband, Rory (Jude Law), on an early morning phone call and then waking his… Read More ›
Movie Review: “I’m Thinking of Ending Things”
I would be lying if I say to you that I have fully worked out what is truly taking place in Charlie Kaufman’s new film, “I’m Thinking of Ending Things.” I have ideas and suspicions and am on my way… Read More ›
Movie Review: “Bill & Ted Face the Music”
About 30 minutes after watching “Bill & Ted Face the Music,” I sat down to watch it again. After my first go through, I was unsure how I felt about the movie. Usually when this happens, I start writing my… Read More ›
Movie Review: “The Personal History of David Copperfield”
My favorite filmic version of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” is the one with The Muppets. Fabulously presented, the whole thing unfolds so as to not only offer up the story and insights into the nature of humanity, but contains… Read More ›
Movie Review: “You Cannot Kill David Arquette”
Not every documentary can necessarily be believed. By their very nature, a documentary claims a certain amount of nonfiction status, but claiming that status and actually being nonfiction are two wholly different things. It would not surprise me in any… Read More ›
Movie Review: “Stage Mother” (2020)
The new film “Stage Mother,” directed by Thom Fitzgerald with a script from Brad Joseph Hennig is one of those movies which may be obvious and stilted and all too easy, but which still manages some level of success. The… Read More ›
Movie Review: “Endless” (2020)
Every once in a while—happily only a once in a great while—I come across a movie which is, for lack of a more descriptive term (we’ll get to that exploration later), bad, but, which also fails to engender anger. Perhaps… Read More ›
Movie Review: “The Secret Garden” (2020)
There are many films which leave themselves open to interpretation. Depending on the interpretation one takes, a film can either be enjoyable or disappointing. Watching the new adaptation of “The Secret Garden,” my viewpoint on the movie made it an… Read More ›
Movie Review: “Out Stealing Horses”
Earlier this summer, I wrote about a movie where Stellan Skarsgård puts in a brief appearance. I noted that the movie was gorgeous and well-considered. I also talked about how it was desperately bleak and how I had no desire… Read More ›
Movie Review: “Summerland”
There is an interesting question posed by “Summerland” at the outset of writer/director Jessica Swale’s film. We initially meet Alice (played by Penelope Wilton) in 1975. Disturbed from her writing by some kids raising money, she yells at them and… Read More ›
Movie Review: “The Rental”
For whatever reason, we have to suffer through horrible fiction tropes across multiple types of media, things that make no sense and yet keep popping up over and over again. One trope that I find particularly heinous is, “no, we… Read More ›
Movie Review: “Most Wanted” (2020)
Some films, even if one knows nothing else about them, are quite clearly based on a true story. Every element of story structure screams it. This does not, in and of itself, make a work good or bad, it is… Read More ›
Movie Review: “Radioactive”
Regularly when one watches a biopic, there is a written postscript which talks about what happens to the character(s) and/or their work (good or bad). “Radioactive,” a movie about Marie Curie, doesn’t eschew a few closing notes, but, wonderfully, incorporates… Read More ›
