Beau Is Afraid
SimilarBrazil (1985), M*A*S*H (1970), Mars Attacks! (1996), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Shaun of the Dead (2004), The Big Blue (1988),
Watch afterKillers of the Flower Moon (2023),
If there’s anything Ari Aster wants you to understand after watching his newest film, it’s that he’s funny. With just three feature films under his belt, Beau Is Afraid marks both a massive departure from his previous films and a solidifying of his style. It’s a movie about terror, without a ton of interest in being terrifying. More specifically, it’s a movie about the absurdity of fear and the ridiculousness of human nature. And yeah, it’s definitely about moms, too. Continue Reading →
Moonfall
SimilarArmageddon (1998), Godzilla Raids Again (1955), Hellboy (2004), Twelve Monkeys (1995), War of the Worlds (2005),
Watch afterDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), Morbius (2022), The Batman (2022),
StudioLionsgate,
Around the halfway point of Roland Emmerich’s new sci-fi disaster flick Moonfall, our protagonists find themselves in a hell of a predicament. It seems like the world is about to end, the most important people have given up on doing anything about it, and the only ones that have a chance of saving the day are the underestimated, the uninspiring, and the over-the-hill. Despite this, they manage to dust off an abandoned space shuttle, squeeze themselves into some old astronaut suits, and blast away to prevent disaster, and maybe, just maybe, become heroes in the process. Continue Reading →
Crisis
In the late '90s, pharmaceutical companies claimed that the opioids that they produced weren’t addictive, causing a spike in medical providers prescribing them. This claim was, of course, false, and the influx of people who became addicted to opioids has created a public health crisis that results in an economic burden of $7.85 billion a year. Even worse is the human cost. In 2018, 67,367 Americans were killed via drug overdose. Of that number 69.5% of those deaths were caused by Opioids- mainly synthetic opioids. Continue Reading →
The United States vs. Billie Holiday
SimilarFreedom Writers (2007), La Vie en Rose (2007), Raging Bull (1980), The Pursuit of Happyness (2006),
An icon of the 20th-century jazz scene, Billie Holiday was an icon of Black culture, haunted by abuse and addiction. Her song “Strange Fruit”, based on a poem that describes a lynching, propelled her to fame – but also got the attention of the federal government, taking dramatic steps to stop her from singing the song in an effort to racialize the War on Drugs. In The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Lee Daniels tracks Holiday as the Federal Department of Narcotics begins to pursue her toward that end, in a film that ends up being a waste of potential. Continue Reading →