769 Best Releases From the Genre Drama (Page 11)
Campanadas a medianoche
SimilarBelle de Jour (1967), Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994),
At Midnight goes by a formula that really should have worked. Set in some of the most gorgeous spots in Mexico, with two charmingly attractive leads and a premise worthy of a zany 1930s rom-com, At Midnight has everything going for it, but the pieces never quite fit. Writer-director Jonah Feingold’s script borrows from more ambitious romcoms like Jane the Virgin and Notting Hill, with limited success. Continue Reading →
Magic Mike's Last Dance
SimilarBack to the Future Part II (1989), Back to the Future Part III (1990), Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), Shaun of the Dead (2004), Shrek 2 (2004), Shrek the Third (2007),
In the climactic monologue of the original Magic Mike, Mike Lane (Channing Tatum) says, “I don’t want to be a forty-year-old stripper.” It’s an affecting scene that shows that Mike understands the dead-end nature of his current lifestyle and his desire to escape, and it makes the ending where he gives stripping up a satisfying one. Continue Reading →
You
SimilarAround the World in 80 Days, My Holo Love, The Summer I Turned Pretty,
StarringEd Speleers,
The first season of You was a chilling and remarkably trenchant look into the mind of a misogynist. It followed toxic Nice Guy-slash-psychopath Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) as he stalked the object of his affection through New York City’s elite literary circles. An almost Humbert Humbert-like figure, Joe used his narration to manipulate the audience and try to win them over. Even as he began killing people who stood in the way of his desires he kept up the seduction. Continue Reading →
Fairyland
Two tales of fathers and repression explore the importance of self-realization and the cost of parental absence.
In trying to represent marginalized communities accurately, we often see portrayals that treat marginalization as a point of exceptional virtue. There's an implication that people who don’t live lives presented by dominant media as “normal” need overcompensation. This manifests itself as portrayals in an infallibly positive light. This tends to happen because there is still an inherent misunderstanding, especially in Hollywood, that being underprivileged or underrepresented is something to overcome through fictional media and not through things like policy, legislation, and freedom.
Andrew Durham’s Fairyland provides a refreshing contrast to this typical presentation. It showcases its foremost gay character as a free-spirited individual who values the ability to express his lifestyle AND a frequently inadequate, often neglectful, and ultimately regretful father. Continue Reading →
Drift
A pair of films out of the festival chronicle friendships new and old with differing degrees of success.
While last year’s Banshees of Inisherin examined the end of a long friendship, Anthony Chen’s Drift depicts the slow but hopeful beginning of a new one. Banshees focused on a connection built out of commonality--same island and neighbors, similar life circumstances and concerns. By contrast, Drift revolves around a duo who don’t fit with each other or their surroundings. One, Callie (Alia Shawkat), is an American tour guide defined by her warm and non-judgemental demeanor. The other, Jacqueline (Cynthia Erivo), a Liberian-British refugee, is more guarded and grounded down.
Unfortunately, Chen’s awkwardly plotted aims at political statements too frequently get in the way of what seems to be a wonderfully compassionate burgeoning connection between these two women. Chen is a bit out of his depth here unlike with his wonderful debut Ilo Ilo. Despite that film deftly exploring similar themes like class, immigration, and a friendship between two disparate parties, Drift never succeeds in the same way. Continue Reading →
The Watchful Eye
SimilarThreshold,
StudioABC Signature,
Creating an engaging plot-driven primetime soap is a delicate process, despite how big and loud such shows tend to be. Burn through too many storylines too early, and you end up with, well, a Ryan Murphy series. On the other hand, take too much time to toss out the red meat, and the audience drifts, tired of potential with no execution. Continue Reading →
Accused
SimilarCruel Summer, Star and Sky: Star in My Mind,
American remakes of British television shows haven’t earned the best reputation despite a few gems over the years. The newest series to make it successfully across the pond, FOX’s new crime drama, Accused, does so with a premise you just can’t mess up. Continue Reading →
Heroico
The military drama Heroic overcomes cliché to capture structural horror.
A significant string of recently released movies centralize crises of faith. The lead suffers abuse, boiling until they burst. Perhaps it’s a sign of the times, a subconscious metaphor for how authoritarianism and the crushing realities of oppressive institutional forces are increasing the temperature and pressure of the citizenry that will inevitably lead to a rupture. In 2022 there was God’s Country, The Beasts, and Women Talking. Now at Sundance, we have Heroic, a Mexican drama unfolding inside a military school. Director David Zonana’s film may resemble several movies that use this same arc. However, it distinguishes itself with careful direction and surreal depictions of how the mind processes abuse and vengeance.
Zonana films hazing rituals and routine drills with an eye for visual geometry that distinguishes power levels. Young recruits, referred to as “potros” (colts), always move on the sides of the frame or undistinguished as square or triangular squadrons when conducting gun rituals. Officers remain centered, maintaining authority with both direct physical presence and as a distant watchful eye. Continue Reading →
Dear Edward
SimilarAgatha Christie's Poirot Around the World in 80 Days, Helltown, No Escape, Santa Evita, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Wycliffe,
“Emotionally manipulative” is a criticism of television and film I’ve always struggled with evaluating. If it is doing its job, any show or movie should emotionally manipulate you, at least a bit. It’s why you can go into a dark cineplex feeling a bit in the grip of the blahs and emerge high on the story of Nic Cage and his best swine friend. So know, when I declare Dear Edward “emotionally manipulative as hell,” that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Continue Reading →
Sometimes I Think About Dying
The first films we saw in this year's festival deal with the anxieties of parenthood and personhood.
(This dispatch is part of our coverage of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.)
Film festivals, Sundance in particular, are often the domain of the solid three-star movie -- unremarkable but workable indies and debuts that prove the arrival (or resurgence) of a major talent, albeit without the polish that would make the work they're bringing you feel complete. And that was certainly the case for my first day at (virtual) Sundance, with a quartet of titles covering similar thematic ground and running out of steam long before the end credits roll. Put together, this crop of films collectively explored the loneliness and isolation of the human experience, not to mention the specific vagaries of (cis)womanhood, especially where children are concerned. And they were... okay, I guess? Continue Reading →
Alice, Darling
SimilarLost in Translation (2003), The Big Blue (1988), The Party (1980), The Party 2 (1982),
StarringWunmi Mosaku,
Alice, Darling may tout itself a psychological thriller in its marketing, but that leads audiences astray. This isn’t Repulsion or Mulholland Drive. Instead, it’s a startlingly accurate portrayal of domestic abuse. Continue Reading →
Jethica
What if the one person you wanted to forget simply wouldn’t forget you, even after they died? That’s the premise of Pete Ohs’ new film Jethica, at its best a high-concept comedy with the sunburnt edge of desert noir, but the trouble is waiting between labored set-ups and too-big performance notes to get to them. Ohs has many opportunities to mine the scenario for a weightier emotional core but leaves it in favor of a kind of affectless box-ticking. That is Ohs’ style, to be clear; it just seems fundamentally at war with itself. A comedy with no jokes, a horror movie with no scares, a ghost movie with no interest in the particulars of the afterlife or the terror of dying. It’s a little of a lot and a lot of too little. Continue Reading →
Mayor of Kingstown
SimilarBaywatch Nights, Mirai Sentai Timeranger, Narco-Saints,
StudioMTV Entertainment Studios,
When last we left Kingstown, MI, the town was recovering from a brutal prison riot that left plenty of guards and scores of prisoners dead. Mike McLusky (Jeremy Renner) has proven nowhere near the adept fixer his deceased brother (Kyle Chandler) was. The town paid the price. Continue Reading →
Salvage Hunters: The Restaurators
In Season 2, Hunters remains dedicated to exploring whether vengeance and justice can ever be one and the same. Continue Reading →
The Drop
SimilarA Clockwork Orange (1971),
Jackie Brown (1997) The Dark Knight (2008), The Godfather (1972), The Godfather Part III (1990), Zatoichi (2003),
StudioIngenious Media, TSG Entertainment,
Disaster vacation films are a dime dozen. Audiences see a sun-drenched location and they know – something is afoot. Nonetheless, Hulu is looking to join the genre with their newest, The Drop. Directed by Sarah Adina Smith, The Drop follows a group of friends as they gather for a destination wedding, only to have a shocking incident disturb the celebration. The Drop may not reinvent the “trip gone wrong” trope. Still, its stellar cast and sharp director know how to dig deep to find the weird unease hanging around friends on vacation. Continue Reading →
The Seven Faces of Jane
Most kids have probably drawn an exquisite corpse at least once, even if they didn’t know it had such a name. You fold up a paper into thirds before drawing a man, with the top third as the head, the second as the torso, and the third as the legs. You draw the head and then fold it over hiding your creation before passing the paper to the next person. This way, it becomes a collaborative drawing where each part is created in secret and you only see how it all comes together when it’s unfolded at the end. It’s an incredibly fun way to spend a rainy afternoon and, as it turns out, a pretty awful way to make a movie. Continue Reading →
Vesper
Vesper (Raffiella Chapman, His Dark Materials), a lone teenager clad head to toe in weatherbeaten cold-weather gear, expertly ferrets her way through a blighted field. She's looking for the remains of dead crops—critical samples for her ongoing bio-engineering research. A floating drone—humanized by an awkward, endearingly childish face that's been carved on it—accompanies her. Her father, Darius (Richard Brake), pilots the drone. Left paralyzed and fragile by war and a relentless artificial biosphere, Darius does what he can for his daughter. In the distance stand colossal machines long left to rust, their purpose obscure. Continue Reading →
Anne Rice's Mayfair Witches
NetworkAMC+,
SimilarCigarette Girl,
Roswell Soul Land 2: The Peerless Tang Clan,
AMC’s newest installment in Anne Rice’s ‘Immortal Universe’ may not blow you away, but it’s intriguing enough to warrant a longer look. With the Disneyfication of mainstream television, it’s a relief to know that some networks are still willing to take a risk on a less well-known franchise. While not as much as a household name as its predecessor Interview With the Vampire, Mayfair Witches presents a slowly unraveling southern gothic, whose promise far outshines its performance. Continue Reading →
Copenhagen Cowboy
SimilarPope John Paul II, Santa Evita, The Gold Robbers, Three Days of Christmas, White House Plumbers,
Episode one begins with a chorus of pig screams. The camera pans through endless cages with the poor little oinkers cramped inside. Then we cut to a woman being strangled. We can’t see her face or who’s attached to the hands squeezing the life out of her. The victim cries out, but we can’t hear anything over the pigs. Continue Reading →
A Man Called Otto
There is a Tom Hanks factor that ends up elevating whatever material he takes on. As has often been observed, he’s the closest thing to a modern-era Jimmy Stewart. Like Stewart, Hanks has made an effort to complicate his nice guy persona in this third act of his career. A Man Called Otto is the latest comparison point. While not especially risky, this remake of the 2015 Danish film A Man Called Ove still has an edge. That the film survives its journey to the States with that sharpness intact is something audiences can chalk up to the Hanks Factor. Continue Reading →
Jigsaw
You gotta love a good gimmick. Whether it’s the current 4DX offerings in theatres (which harkens back to the “Tingler” era of Castle silliness) or Netflix dalliances with “Choose Your Own Adventure”-esque stories like Black Mirror’s “Bandersnatch,” or Kimmy Schmidt, there’s an undeniable charm in centering the device. Kaleidoscope is the latest entry in these sorts of experiments. It offers an eight episode heist story that audiences can theoretically watch in any order. Only the episode titled “White” has a specific place in the order: last. That's a recommendation this reviewer firmly endorses. Continue Reading →