Saltburn
SimilarBen-Hur (1959),
Bend It Like Beckham (2002) Billy Elliot (2000), Brazil (1985), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Copying Beethoven (2006), Crash (1996), Desert Hearts (1985), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Fargo (1996), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Klute (1971), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), Lost in Translation (2003), M*A*S*H (1970), Mars Attacks! (1996), My Own Private Idaho (1991), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Paris Can Wait (2016),
Primal Fear (1996) Rope (1948), Shaun of the Dead (2004), Shrek (2001), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), Strange Days (1995), Talk to Her (2002), The Big Blue (1988), The Fisher King (1991), The Holiday (2006), The Last Emperor (1987), The Tin Drum (1979), To Die For (1995), Vertigo (1958),
Watch afterLeave the World Behind (2023), Poor Things (2023), Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023), Society of the Snow (2023), Thanksgiving (2023), Wonka (2023),
StudioMRC,
With her first film, Promising Young Woman, writer-director Emerald Fennell took a storyline that was essentially a cloddish-but-glossy retread of such female-driven revenge sagas as Ms .45 and I Spit on Your Grave, infused it with insights regarding gender issues that would barely have passed muster in a 100-level college class and somehow rode it to inexplicable praise and an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Continue Reading →
Spoiler Alert
SimilarBrubaker (1980), Freedom Writers (2007), Mississippi Burning (1988), Rope (1948),
While they say that love is eternal, eventually, even the greatest of love stories come to an end. Marriage vows foretell the reality of “to death do us part.” It’s an inevitability rarely explored in cinema, and even then, only in schmaltzy melodramatic weepers. Fortunately, Michael Showalter’s Spoiler Alert is free of schmaltz. Instead, the film deftly explores the process of a couple dealing with a terminal illness amid all the usual messiness of a real relationship. Continue Reading →
Firebird
(This review is part of our 2021 coverage of Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival./) Continue Reading →
Annette
SimilarBrubaker (1980), Chicago (2002), Mississippi Burning (1988),
Primal Fear (1996) Rope (1948),
StudioARTE France Cinéma,
As if chomping at the bit to show its true self, Annette immediately disrobes. Director Leos Carax, off-screen during the opening credits, tells the audience to stay silent. Audio tracks spray over shots of Los Angeles and, in a studio, he asks his musicians, “So, may we start?” He’s now speaking not to us but Ron Mael and Russell Mael of Sparks. Both of them share a story by credit, the latter having written the screenplay, and already, the film has dived feet first into its own joke. But Carax’s latest doesn’t just strip itself naked. It takes off its own skin, as a rock opera and as a movie. Continue Reading →