Blue Jean
SimilarMaria Full of Grace (2004),
Watch afterBarbie (2023) John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), The Whale (2022),
StudioBBC Film, BFI,
A portrait of a closeted lesbian woman living in England during Margaret Thatcher’s oppressively homophobic 1980s reign, Georgia Oakley’s Blue Jean illustrates a unique paradox for a critic. How does one navigate criticizing a film’s self-imposed binaries while also accounting for the realities of a restrictive period, the gravity of the subject matter (and parallel current circumstances), and the differentiation of what is intended as cinematic affect and what constitutes clumsy filmmaking? Continue Reading →
The Pale Blue Eye
Scott Cooper’s sense of place and his sense of dread go hand in hand. He was born in Abingdon, Virginia, a city with a population under 10,000, and the place’s melancholy struck him like lightning. Every one of his films is concerned with the impossibility of calling somewhere home, and he shows that even places meant to hold promise are forbidding and corrupt. From the dying factory town of Out of the Furnace to the blood-soaked frontier in Hostiles to the addiction-ravaged backwoods of Antlers, nothing can make Cooper’s America feel anything but haunted. And that's the case in his latest, The Pale Blue Eye. Continue Reading →
The Good Nurse
SimilarBasic Instinct (1992), The Straight Story (1999), Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995),
Watch afterBarbarian (2022),
StudioFilmNation Entertainment,
Trust is a fundamental aspect of any relationship. Whether it’s a friend, co-worker, or relative, developing trust in each other is what can make a beautiful bond flourish. But trusting someone is also giving them the ability to hurt us, leaving us always with the possibility of trusting the wrong person, and suffering because of it. Such is the case of Tobias Lindholm’s The Good Nurse, a film based on the real-life case of serial killer Charles Cullen. The overall tone of the movie is as gray as the dull hospital rooms in which the story takes place, taking away the energy from what would otherwise be a stellar thriller. Continue Reading →
Black Adam
SimilarBack to the Future Part II (1989), From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Shrek the Third (2007), Sin City (2005), The Dark Knight (2008),
Watch afterAvatar: The Way of Water (2022), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022),
StudioDC Films, New Line Cinema,
We’re officially in the third decade of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson being a movie star. The former WWE legend made his cinema debut in the forgettable sequel to The Mummy, where he’s introduced as the dreaded Scorpion King, one of the most infamous early CGI debacles. Special effects have since improved, along with Johnson’s abilities as an actor and charismatic leading man. However, it feels like now we’ve come full circle with DC’s Black Adam. Continue Reading →
See How They Run
StudioSearchlight Pictures, TSG Entertainment,
“You’ve seen one you seen them all," says the dastardly movie director from beyond the grave. It’s the recently murdered Leo Köpernick (Adrien Brody), telling us early in the film about how stale the murder mystery genre was even by the 1950s, when See How They Run takes place. It’s also a warning to the audience that this movie will not be adding anything new, revelatory, or exciting to whodunnit cinema. Everything here has been done before, and better. Continue Reading →
Barbarian
SimilarFrom Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Saw (2004), Saw II (2005),
Studio20th Century Studios,
It can be hard to write about films sometimes. No mere words, no matter how witty, insightful, or elegant, can truly capture the experience of watching the most surprising ones. Except for movies like Zach Cregger's (The Whitest Kids U'Know) new horror/thriller, Barbarian, which I can encapsulate perfectly with a few phrases: Continue Reading →
Top Gun: Maverick
SimilarApocalypse Now (1979), Die Hard 2 (1990), Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995), Godzilla Raids Again (1955), Live Free or Die Hard (2007), Mississippi Burning (1988), Superman Returns (2006),
Watch afterJurassic World Dominion (2022), Thor: Love and Thunder (2022),
StarringJon Hamm,
Navy Captain Peter "Pete" Mitchell, callsign "Maverick" (Tom Cruise) is a living legend. He is the only man to have shot down multiple enemy planes in the modern era of combat aviation. From the F-14 Tomcat to bleeding-edge skunkworks stealth plane prototypes, there is nothing he cannot fly, nothing he cannot (or more accurately will not) push past the fabled Danger Zone. Continue Reading →
Hell Hath No Fury
Occupied France. 1941. The egomaniacal, romantic SS Colonel Von Brückner (Daniel Bernhardt) and his supposed French mistress Marie (Nina Bergman) are ambushed by the Resistance on their way to secret away gold pilfered from Von Brückner’s superiors. They survive. Continue Reading →
On the Count of Three
SimilarBrazil (1985), Mars Attacks! (1996), Talk to Her (2002),
Jerrod Carmichael's grim bromance straddles a delicate balance of tones between comedy and dark thriller, buoyed by a couple of strong performances.
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.)
On the Count of Three, the directorial debut from comedian Jerrod Carmichael, walks a tonal tightrope. It’s obvious from the first five minutes that this tightrope exists, and from the first 15 minutes, that it’s not always walked to perfection. Following lifelong, struggling best friends who agree on an end-of-day suicide pact, On the Count of Three combines Carmichael with the recent indie explosion that is Christopher Abbott. Playing Val and Kevin, the two characters spend their final day rewriting old wrongs, revisiting old foes, and seeing if they still can hop on a BMX bike and not shatter their ankles. Continue Reading →