56 Best Releases From the Genre History (Page 2)
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 →
Kim's Video
The documentary Kim's Video stumbles when it stops relying on the facts in favor of flights of fancy.
The video rental empire known as Kim’s Video began in the late 1980s. It started as an adjunct to a Manhattan dry-cleaning establishment owned by a mysterious man named Yongman Kim and eventually expanded to five New York City locations. Though it never went further than that geographically, it became a mecca for cinephiles worldwide. They were drawn in by tales of its legendary collection of classics, cult favorites, rare and quasi-legally obtained titles, and straight-up weird shit.
Nonetheless, its reputation couldn’t keep it from being a victim of the industry moving from physical media to streaming. The last store closed in 2008, leaving Kim sitting on a stockpile of over 55,000 titles that many institutions would give their eyeteeth to acquire. Continue Reading →
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody
SimilarThe Pianist (2002), The Straight Story (1999),
Look, I grew up a lonely gay kid. Locking myself in the dark and blasting Whitney Houston is what I do best. If Kasi Lemmons set out to make a divinely mixed greatest hits experience for Whitney fans to do so collectively, then she has certainly succeeded. Continue Reading →
To End All War: Oppenheimer & the Atomic Bomb
To The End opens with activist Varshini Prakash, leader of The Sunrise Movement, as she tours the destruction left in a wildfire’s wake. A bleak landscape meets her. There are houses burned and left in ruin. A car drives into the area, flames licking at the road as smoke covers the terrain. It’s a hell of a stirring beginning to Rachel Lears’ timely and extensive climate change documentary To The End. Continue Reading →
She Said
SimilarA Beautiful Mind (2001), Erin Brockovich (2000), Sissi (1955), The Green Mile (1999), The Pianist (2002), The Straight Story (1999),
StarringPeter Friedman,
For most people contemplating going to see She Said, the screen adaptation of the 2019 best-seller by New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey chronicling their ground-breaking investigation of Harvey Weinstein, three questions may come to mind. How graphic is the film going to be regarding the crimes he perpetuated over the years against hundreds of women unfortunate enough to cross his path? How will it handle the representation of the well-known personalities who were critical elements of the story, ranging from Weinstein himself to the famous actresses who were among his victims? Finally, as films chronicling journalists as they break hugely important stories go, how does it stack up against the likes of All the President’s Men, still the gold standard of the genre, or more recent examples like Spotlight or The Post? Continue Reading →
Master of Light
Most people won’t recognize George Anthony Morton’s name. The subject of Rosa Ruth Boesten’s new documentary, Master of Light, will be an unfamiliar face for many. Importantly, most people haven’t seen his work. They haven’t seen him hold a brush. They haven’t seen him examine the light. They haven’t seen his paintings, which are, in every sense of the word, magnificent. Continue Reading →
The Woman King
SimilarBoys Don't Cry (1999) From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Lost in Translation (2003),
Watch afterBlack Adam (2022),
Gina Prince-Bythewood is indisputably one of the most interesting directors working in Hollywood today. Since breaking out with the hit sports romance Love & Basketball, her work has ranged from intimate family dramas and love stories (The Secret Life of Bees, Beyond the Lights) to action-packed superhero movies (The Old Guard). It took Prince-Bythewood seven years to bring her new film, The Woman King, to the screen. Epic, thrilling, and jam-packed with delightful character beats, The Woman King understandably feels like the culmination of Prince-Bythewood’s work so far. As masterful at shooting stunning fight sequences as she is wringing emotions from intimate dialogue scenes, Prince-Bythewood delivers a crowd-pleaser for the ages. Continue Reading →
Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel
If you were ever the same kind of pretentious twerp as I was, you likely went through a phrase sometime in your teens or early 20s when you daydreamed about visiting New York City’s Hotel Chelsea, a bohemian Emerald City that housed everyone from Dylan Thomas to members of the Beat Generation to Andy Warhol to Joni Mitchell to Leonard Cohen. It wasn’t just that many of the most fascinating, iconic artists of the 20th century stayed at the Chelsea, but that they did some of their best work there, as if there was some sort of inspirational magic in the walls. Continue Reading →
Grbavica
SimilarLost in Translation (2003), The Big Blue (1988), The Fisher King (1991), The Party (1980), The Party 2 (1982),
This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. Continue Reading →
The Untouchables
Although histories of Hollywood in the 1970s tend to include Brian De Palma alongside the so-called “movie brats” who helped to revolutionize the film industry at that time (Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola), his films never came close to reaching the critical and/or commercial peaks they had. Continue Reading →
Call Jane
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Sundance Festival) Continue Reading →
The Dawn of the Renaissance - Florence Cathedral
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Sundance Festival) Continue Reading →
劇場版 美少女戦士セーラームーンCosmos 前編
SimilarNausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), Paris Can Wait (2016), Princess Mononoke (1997),
StarringAyane Sakura, Hisako Kanemoto, Junko Minagawa, Kotono Mitsuishi, Marina Inoue, Mariya Ise, Megumi Hayashibara, Sayaka Ohara, Shizuka Itoh, Shoko Nakagawa,
StudioKing Records, Studio Deen, Toei Animation, Toei Company,
One cannot review Being the Ricardos without addressing the curious casting choice of Nicole Kidman as First Lady of Comedy Lucille Ball. Other than being a redhead, Kidman looks nothing like Ball, and has never been known for her comedic chops. Given that the teaser trailer went out of its way to not show her, it seemed a disaster in the making, a future camp classic originally intended to be Oscar bait. Continue Reading →
Ragtime
When it was announced in 1975 that Robert Altman, then riding high on the success of his groundbreaking epic Nashville, had been hired to direct the film version of E.L. Doctorow’s sprawling novel Ragtime, it almost seemed too good to be true. After all, not only was he one of the most inventive American filmmakers of the era, he seemed uniquely qualified to bring the book to the screen. Additionally, with its sprawling cast of characters, multiple storylines, and cheeky mixture of fact and fiction, Nashville now seems like an experiment to test out potential approaches for tackling that book. Continue Reading →
Spencer
Pablo Larraín’s sympathetic “fable” about Diana, Princess of Wales, also compassionately addresses the secret shame of eating disorders.
CONTENT WARNING: this article addresses eating disorders and self-injury. See our spoiler-free overview of Spencer here.
If Pablo Larraín’s Spencer doesn’t change your mind about royalty being aspirational, then nothing will. Sure, you’ll have access to wealth and fancy clothes, but at the cost of your time and privacy. Every part of your life, every holiday, even “off time” with your family, is scheduled down to the last minute, and everything you do is judged according to tradition and propriety. Maybe it’ll be you who breaks tradition, who makes things different through sheer force of will. But probably not. You’ll be a dress-up doll in a glass case, to be taken out and shown off whenever the occasion calls for it, whether you want to be or not. Continue Reading →
House of Gucci
Watch afterDon't Look Up (2021), Nightmare Alley (2021), The Power of the Dog (2021), West Side Story (2021),
StudioBron Studios, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
There’s a word that exists in the Italian language that doesn’t quite have a counterpart in any other language: sprezzatura. What it essentially boils down to is the art of looking like you don’t care – a style of perfectly-studied imperfection. This idea goes back at least to the Renaissance, a time when the Gucci family earned its reputation as skilled saddlemakers to the rich and aristocratic. Or at least that’s how Aldo Gucci, the powerful and powerfully at-ease paterfamilias played by Al Pacino, relates the family history in Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci. It is against this backdrop – of wealth, power, history, and above all, style – that Scott and screenwriters Roberto Bentivegna and Becky Johnston weave their story, an uneven yet compelling story about the only person who became a Gucci through their own making rather than by an accident of birth, and yet was forever an outsider. Continue Reading →
Attica
In the final hours of the 1971 Attica Prison Riot, a helicopter circled the nearly 1,300 prisoners of the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York. It blared the words, “You will not be harmed,” assuming the inmates would be spared any violence if they cooperated. While this phrase repeats, correctional officers and state troopers open fire on the prisoners, killing and injuring those that were fighting for basic human rights. That moment could represent the entire carnage of those five days in Attica. Continue Reading →
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain
SimilarBack to the Future Part III (1990), Copying Beethoven (2006), Metropolis (1927), The Elephant Man (1980),
StarringSophia Di Martino,
StudioFilm4 Productions,
The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is an alternatively madcap and melancholic retelling of the artistic and personal life of the peculiar Louis Wain by making a lot of noise but not saying much. Biographical films have to tread a very difficult line. They must tell their central characters’ life and accomplishments while humanizing them through their rituals and quirks. And they must do this all without turning the movie idealization or fetishization of such things. Narratively, what Louis Wain gets right is that focusing on the man as a deeply troubled individual and melds his artistic work along with the afflictions that he suffered. What it gets wrong is its inability to dig deeper into Louis Wain beyond his whimsies and mannerisms and the surrounding greater Victorian English culture. Continue Reading →
Diana: The Musical
Next year will mark, improbably, 25 years since Diana, Princess of Wales was killed in a horrific car accident while being chased down by aggressive photographers. Like Marilyn Monroe, another unlucky blonde who was mercilessly hounded by the press before dying too young, Diana’s image has only become more indelible in the years following her death. Also like Marilyn, lots of money has been made exploiting her, in endless bullshit attempts to tell her “true” story. Musician/lyricists David Bryan and Joe DiPietro cash in on her too with the Broadway musical Diana, filmed and presented on Netflix for our viewing “pleasure.” The producers of Dear Evan Hansen owe Bryan and DiPietro a great deal of gratitude, because Evan Hansen is no longer the worst musical of 2021. Continue Reading →
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
SimilarAlmost Famous (2000),
Boys Don't Cry (1999) Gandhi (1982), GoodFellas (1990), Manhattan (1979), The Last Emperor (1987),
Watch aftertick tick... BOOM! (2021), West Side Story (2021),
StudioSearchlight Pictures,
Have you ever spoken to a friend who was tangentially involved in a big event? They know the players, they saw some of it go down, but they’re missing pieces of information. They lack the perspective of someone directly involved and the insights that come with that. That’s the experience of watching The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Continue Reading →
Benedetta
In the opening scene of Benedetta, a young girl stops along the road to pray to a shrine of the Virgin Mary. A group of bandits ambushes her and her family, nobles who are well-off but by no means excessively affluent. Benedetta curses the thieves as they snatch her mother’s gold necklace, promising that the Holy Mother will haunt them for the rest of their days. Suddenly, a small bird flies from a nearby tree and shits in the eye of the bandit leader. The men laugh and toss the jewelry back to Benedetta’s mother, preferring not to risk it. Still, we’re left wondering – was this divine intervention? Or just a case of well-timed bird poop? Continue Reading →