Landscape with Invisible Hand
Similar2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Annie Hall (1977), Blade Runner (1982),
Boys Don't Cry (1999) Contact (1997), East of Eden (1955), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991),
Jackie Brown (1997) Manhattan (1979), Mars Attacks! (1996), Mary Poppins (1964), Predator (1987), Random Harvest (1942), Solaris (1972), Stalker (1979),
The Name of the Rose (1986) The Outsiders (1983), The Science of Sleep (2006), The Silent Partner (1978), The Thirteenth Floor (1999), To Die For (1995), War of the Worlds (2005),
Watch afterBarbie (2023) Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023), The Equalizer 3 (2023),
StudioMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
Cory Finley is obsessed with money. His characters have nice things or want them. They live in beautiful houses or enviously plot to get them. Even in the year 2036, with aliens living on (or, more precisely, about two miles above) planet Earth, people still fret over money and try to make scads of it. That’s the state of things in his latest, Landscape with Invisible Hand. It’s a title with the same bespoke aestheticism as the stuffed ocelots and oversized chess pieces his characters own. It feels seemingly designed to scare off less curious viewers. While the film has an awful lot of plot, the undergirding is the same. As in his 2017 debut Thoroughbreds, his follow-up Bad Education, and even his episodes of the abysmal miniseries WeCrashed, the drama comes from the idea of what money does to the soul. Continue Reading →
The Afterparty
When last we saw Aniq (Sam Richardson) and Detective Danner (Tiffany Haddish) in The Afterparty, both were doing great. Aniq had exonerated himself for the murder of classmate Xavier (Dave Franco)—albeit at the cost of sending his friend Yasper (Ben Schwartz) to jail—and had a date with his high school crush Zoe (Zoë Chao). Danner had solved the crime of her career and put her rival Detective Germain (Reid Scott) to do it. Continue Reading →
Tuca & Bertie
Tuca & Bertie Season 3 finds Tuca (Tiffany Haddish) and Bertie (Ali Wong) rebuilding their lives in the season two Bird Town flooding and moss infestation aftermath. They’ve got promising leads professionally with new jobs on the horizon. Plus, they’re both in solid relations. Bertie with adorkable long-term boyfriend Speckle (Steven Yeun) and Tuca’s new beau Figgy (Matthew Rhys). The two bird besties might be leveling up in careers and personal life, but there’s always some drama waiting around the corner to pounce in and disrupt their technicolor dreams. Continue Reading →
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
SimilarAmélie (2001), Batman Begins (2005), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), The Party (1980), The Party 2 (1982),
StarringPedro Pascal,
Nicolas Cage became a national institution somewhere between stealing Huggies from a convenience store and putting the bunny back in the box. Since then, his career has been a mixture of some highs and many more lows. In the process, he’s gone from one of our most celebrated actors to a self-parody. It’s debatable whether Cage has previously leaned into his own outsized persona, but there’s no question he’s in on the joke with The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. Continue Reading →
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run
StarringDee Bradley Baker,
Early on in The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, the third cinematic iteration of the long-running Nickelodeon series SpongeBob Squarepants -- after 2004's The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and 2015's The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water -- the Tim Hill-directed road movie flashes us back to the childhood of our absorbent, yellow, porous protagonist (voiced by Tom Kenny) and his first meeting with his beloved snail, Gary. By the time the film's over, we'll learn that all of SpongeBob's friends -- Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke), Squidward (Rodger Bumpass), Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown), and the rest -- all met as kids in an undersea summer camp called Kamp Koral. 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 →