June Zero
SimilarA Bronx Tale (1993), Anna and the King (1999), Auto Focus (2002), Brubaker (1980), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Fahrenheit 451 (1966), Forrest Gump (1994), Freedom Writers (2007), JFK (1991), Life Is Beautiful (1997), Monster (2003), My Brother Is an Only Child (2007), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Schindler's List (1993), Sissi (1955), Sissi: The Fateful Years of an Empress (1957), Sissi: The Young Empress (1956), Sommersby (1993), The Pianist (2002), The Wanderers (1979), Twin Murders: The Silence of the White City (2019), Walk the Line (2005),
Watch afterDune: Part Two (2024),
Oppenheimer (2023) Poor Things (2023), The Batman (2022), The Flash (2023),
So back in 1982, Harrison Ford was on Letterman promoting Blade Runner (this is gonna make sense, promise), and when Dave asked him to describe the movie's tone, Ford took a long pause and said, “It’s no musical comedy, David.” The most succinct way to describe June Zero, directed and co-written (along with Tom Shovel) by Jake Paltrow, is that it’s no musical comedy. What it is is a subtle, thoughtful, closely observed story about a small moment in history that explores the difficulty in distinguishing justice from vengeance, understanding your trauma versus defining yourself by it, and how hard it can be to find moral equilibrium in a world in constant turmoil. It’s not what you’d call a fun movie (see above re: Ford, Harrison, and Blade Runner), but it is quietly gripping and manages to find a fresh new perspective in one the most wrung-out of genres, the Holocaust Reckoning Movie.
One of the most prominent Nazis to survive the war and escape Germany was Adolf Eichmann, a high-ranking officer in the SS and one of the primary organizers and executors of the Holocaust. Eichmann managed to escape Allied imprisonment and avoid capture until he was apprehended in Argentina in 1960 by Israeli Mossad agents. He was taken to Israel, tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang, which he did on June 1st, 1962.
June Zero is barely interested in any of that very well-trodden ground. What it focuses on instead are the dual problems of keeping Eichmann alive until the state can execute him and what to do with his body after he dies. Burying such a monster on Israeli soil was obviously out of the question, as was the prospect of returning the body to Eichmann’s family or anywhere else out of fear that it could be interred and become a pro-Nazi symbol. The only choice that makes any sense is cremation. And so Israel went about the business of building an oven to incinerate the corpse of a man who planned and oversaw the incineration of so many of their people. Continue Reading →
Daddio
SimilarA Real Young Girl (1976), Antonia's Line (1995), Awakenings (1990), Basquiat (1996),
Bend It Like Beckham (2002) Boys Don't Cry (1999) Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), City of God (2002), Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962), Copying Beethoven (2006), Desert Hearts (1985), Do the Right Thing (1989), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Fame (2009), King Kong (2005), Lords of Dogtown (2005),
Lost in Translation (2003) Maria Full of Grace (2004), Michael (1996), Monsoon Wedding (2001), My Life Without Me (2003), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Pi (1998), Pocketful of Miracles (1961), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Sliver (1993),
Strange Days (1995) Stranger Than Paradise (1984), The Apartment (1960), The Bone Collector (1999), The Godfather Part III (1990), The King of Comedy (1982), The Terminal (2004), The Usual Suspects (1995), The Wanderers (1979), Transamerica (2005), Valley of the Dolls (1967), When Harry Met Sally... (1989),
Watch afterAvatar: The Way of Water (2022) Barbie (2023) Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), Dune (2021), Dune: Part Two (2024), Fast X (2023), Five Nights at Freddy's (2023), Inception (2010), Interstellar (2014), John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), Joker (2019),
Oppenheimer (2023) Poor Things (2023), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), The Batman (2022), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), Top Gun: Maverick (2022), Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021),
From Certified Copy to Mass to the Before trilogy, cinema is replete with examples of great movies that wring transfixing drama out of an intimate scope and a cast of characters you can count on one hand. Christy Hall’s feature-length directorial debut Daddio aims to follow in the footsteps of those features, but stumbles mightily in the process.
Daddio begins at a New York airport, where Girlie (Dakota Johnson) plops into a taxi after a trip to her home state of Oklahoma. Driving this cab is Clark (Sean Penn), a grizzled man in his sixties who loves shooting his mouth off. Initially, the focus of his ramblings is typical old-man material. He gripes about the ubiquity of apps and credit cards in the modern world. Gradually, though, the duo gets trapped in traffic. Stuck on the road, Clark begins asking Girlie increasingly intimate questions. They started this car ride as strangers. But conversations ranging from the raw to the ribald will have Girlie discovering the listener she didn’t know she needed.
Unsurprisingly, Daddio started as a concept for a stage play. What's surprising is how the final film's visual impulses seem determined to avoid comparisons to something you could watch on Broadway. Hall, cinematographer Phedon Papamichael, and editor Lisa Zeno Churgin act furiously to avoid lengthy single-take shots. Nobody will ever compare this to a Chantal Akerman or Chung Mong-Hong movie. Instead, images default to close-ups and medium shots. Hall and company continuously jostle viewers around the cab. Maybe this is out of concern that moviegoers will see a more staid visual style and immediately ask, “Why isn’t this a play?” Continue Reading →
Stamped from the Beginning
SimilarA Certain Magical Index: The Miracle of Endymion (2013), I've Always Liked You (2016), Meet the Robinsons (2007), Shrek (2001), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988),
Watch afterAvatar: The Way of Water (2022) Barbie (2023) Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), Dune (2021), Dune: Part Two (2024), Inception (2010), Interstellar (2014), Joker (2019),
Oppenheimer (2023) Parasite (2019), Raya and the Last Dragon (2021), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), The Batman (2022), The Menu (2022), The Suicide Squad (2021), Top Gun: Maverick (2022), Wonka (2023),
The Netflix documentary uses historical evidence and modern scholarship to demonstrate racism's continued role in US society.
At the start of the new documentary Stamped from the Beginning, filmmaker Roger Ross Williams asks his various interview subjects, “What is wrong with Black people?” Considering that all the interviewees in question are also Black, it is unsurprising that the question’s seeming hostility initially throws many. However, once they recognize the context of that query—Williams is asking for a historical context as to what Blacks have done to deserve centuries of institutionalized racism and violence—they are more than willing and able to discuss the subject at length throughout this strong and often provocative film.
Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s book of the same name inspired the Williams’ film, a karmic debt the director pays back by including the doctor among a number of knowledgeable Black female scholars and activists. Together, they discuss how the twin stains of racism and white supremacy permeate American society in ways that continue to fester today. They explain how the concept of deeming people as greater or lesser by the color of their skin was born out of slavery. The aim was to simultaneously remove enslaved people’s distinguishing characteristics to make them seem like one undifferentiated mass and drive a wedge between them and white “indentured servants” to prevent the groups from joining forces against their common enemy, the wealthy landowner. Continue Reading →
Once Within a Time
Watch afterA Quiet Place (2018), Avatar (2009),
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) Barbie (2023) Black Adam (2022), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), Black Widow (2021), Dune (2021), Inception (2010),
Oppenheimer (2023) Parasite (2019), Poor Things (2023), Raya and the Last Dragon (2021), Society of the Snow (2023), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), The Batman (2022), The Whale (2022), Wonka (2023),
When Godfrey Reggio’s monumental experimental documentary Koyannistqatsi (Life Out of Balance in Hopi) first entered the zeitgeist, its radical nature as a postmodern film, with a thoroughly entrancing score by Phillip Glass, became intertwined with the rise of MTV and a new era of visual aesthetic being born within the music sphere. From the noise rock band Cows to electronic musicians Dr. Atmo and Oliver Leib to superstar pop singer Madonna, the film had an indelible effect on music and the music video. Continue Reading →
怒火
SimilarCarrie (1976), Four Brothers (2005), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009),
Watch afterFree Guy (2021),
Bong (Donnie Yen) is a hero cop. He's bold, decisive, and always gets his man. For good and ill, he's got no patience for the brass and their smirking politicking. And he's got even less patience for those of his peers who grin through the sleaze and kiss up to their superiors anyway. But Bong being a hero isn't the same thing as his being good. His derring-do, damn-it-if-it-doesn't-get-us-our-guy mode and his attempts to pass it on have cost people he's cared for terribly. And that cost isn't something he's fully faced. Continue Reading →
Dune
SimilarResident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Stalker (1979),
Watch afterDon't Look Up (2021), Eternals (2021), Free Guy (2021), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), The Batman (2022), Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021),
StarringBabs Olusanmokun, Stellan Skarsgård,
When I first heard the announcement of a new adaptation of Frank Herbert’s magnum opus Dune, I think I might have groaned and said, “God, not again.” Even with the cult followings that Lynch’s now-disowned 1984 version and SyFy’s plodding 2000 miniseries have amassed, there has yet to be a version that had the kind of mass appeal that gets butts in seats. Continue Reading →
The Many Saints of Newark
SimilarA Bronx Tale (1993), A History of Violence (2005), Brubaker (1980), The Departed (2006), Walk the Line (2005),
Watch afterDon't Look Up (2021), Free Guy (2021),
StudioNew Line Cinema,
When Anthony “Tony” Soprano first appears in Alan Taylor’s The Many Saints of Newark, he’s just a kid, hanging on the shoulder of his Uncle Richard “Dickie” Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola). Much like the show it precedes, Taylor’s crime drama focuses on family, a group of related and unrelated men and women influencing and subsequently controlling various parts of New Jersey. Billed as a Tony Soprano origin story, a prequel that wasn’t needed but wanted, the film never feels inherently necessary or emotional. It coasts upon characters it has already set up, actors with pedigree playing said characters, and the understanding that this David Chase-created world is still connected and worth our time. Continue Reading →
Best Sellers
SimilarBreakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Dead Poets Society (1989), Finding Forrester (2000),
Manhattan (1979) Moulin Rouge! (2001),
There’s a certain reaction one has when watching a movie that opens with the Chicken Soup for the Soul logo, and that is a labored sigh. The company that made its fortune publishing collections of inspiring true stories about overcoming adversity and beating the odds quietly moved into the movie producing business some years back. You’d be forgiven if up to this point you hadn’t heard of anything they produced--the vast majority of their projects seemed to have been created specifically for the direct to streaming market, with titles like 12 Dogs of Christmas and Paris Countdown. After a recent deal with Redbox, however, they’re looking to move into more prestige fare, starting with the comedy-drama Best Sellers. Continue Reading →
The Courier
Dominic Cooke's well-crafted spy thriller doesn't try anything new, but boasts winning performances & a zippy plot.
In 2019, the buddy-car film Ford v Ferrari became the clear cut favorite of dads across American and Britain. Using well-matched leads in Christian Bale and Matt Damon, James Mangold’s film became a critical and commercial hit, showing that fathers still have the power to put a movie into the green. It looks like there’s a new dad film of 2020 though, with Dominic Cooke’s Ironbark taking its rightful spot upon the beer-bellied throne.
Ironbark tells the story of Greville Wynne (Benedict Cumberbatch), a British businessman recruited by the government to become a spy-like courier in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Wynne agrees to keep this entire operation a secret from everyone, including his wife Sheila (Jessie Buckley), growing more invested and involved and spy-ish.
Flanked by one British operative Dickie Franks (Angus Wright) and one American operative Emily Donovan (Rachel Brosnahan), Wynne begins meeting with a Russian source named Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze). Together, they smuggle nuclear information back into Britain and the U.S. in hopes of avoiding nuclear war, and eventually dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis. Continue Reading →