7 Best Movies To Watch After Marnie (1964)
May December
In such films as Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, Velvet Goldmine and I’m Not There, filmmaker Todd Haynes has taken the stories of famous people and utilized what we know—or think we know—about them to explore ideas about celebrity and our all-consuming need to render their often-complex stories into straightforward narratives. That strange compulsion to explain, understand, and commodify the lives of real people is at the heart of his latest work, May December, and it certainly seems to have sparked something in him because the end result is the strongest work that he has done in quite some time. Continue Reading →
Kill List
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn't exist. Continue Reading →
I Used to Be Funny
Rachel Sennott excels in a film that never rises to the level of her performance. Having already more than proven her comedic chops in the great Shiva Baby and the not-so-great Bodies Bodies Bodies, I Used to Be Funny finds rising star Rachel Sennott showing off her dramatic chops for a change. In this task, she succeeds. Alas, that’s more than can be said about the film as a whole. It proves to be little more than an angsty muddle that never quite seems to know what it is trying to accomplish. She plays Sam, a stand-up comedian whose rising career stalled due to a recent traumatic incident. She’s been unable to return to the stage or do much of anything ever since. Instead, she just holes up in a house she shares with two loving but worried roommates. Then, one day, she hears a news report about a missing 14-year-old girl named Brooke (Olga Petsa). Realizing she may have been the last person to see Brooke alive jolts her from her malaise. Continue Reading →
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 South by Southwest Festival) Continue Reading →
Slalom
The first lesson for 15-year-old Lyz Lopez (Noée Abita) in Slalom is an appropriately harsh one, considering the film’s subject matter. To become a world-class skiing champion, she has to overcome all fear, all under the guidance of an overbearing coach (Jérémie Renier) who grooms her in more ways than one. Continue Reading →
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
David Fincher's 2011 adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is both a quite good movie and a deeply frustrating one. At its best, it thrillingly delves into the art of investigation through the eyes of two well-crafted and well-performed protagonists. At its worst, it falls flat on its face and takes its sweet time to get up, dust itself off, and get back into a groove. Continue Reading →
Along Came Polly
Splat! In the first sixty seconds of Along Came Polly, Philip Seymour Hoffman eats pavement. Make that wax: his character, the self-absorbed Sandy Lyle, slips on the dance-floor of his best friend’s wedding, tumbling to the ground in classic slapstick fashion. Hoffman does a great drop, instantly putting a smile on my face – a smile that (unlike the actor) would rarely fall for the remainder of the runtime. Continue Reading →