1187 Best Film & TV Releases Translated Into Dutch (Page 39)

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 →

Kenneth Branagh directs a moving film about a working class Irish family impacted by the Troubles. Historical films — especially those about devastating and traumatic events — require a precarious balance. If you focus too much on the events themselves, you risk erasing the humanity of the people who experienced them, coming across like a dry textbook. Dive too deeply into the personal — especially if your characters are fictional or fictionalized — and there’s always a chance you’ll make a maudlin melodrama that uses history as little more than a backdrop. This balance becomes exponentially more difficult to maintain when your audience’s main point of access to your story is the eyes of a child, because you’re at constant risk of nostalgia muddying up the proceedings.  Given the subject matter of Belfast and Kenneth Branagh’s deep connection to it (although the film is not a memoir, there are a great deal of similarities between the fictional family and the Belfast-born writer and director’s own), he could have easily faltered with this particular story. It would have been easy to forgive him if he did. Hell, he probably would have made a decent film even if it got too sentimental. This is Kenneth Branagh we’re talking about, after all. But what he’s done instead is craft a film that’s as measured as it is miraculous.  Continue Reading →

Lady of the Manor is the very definition of a mixed bag. Judy Greer as a snooty, Southern Belle ghost? Just delightful! Justin Long and his brother inadvertently diving headlong into delicate racial issues in their directorial debut? Not so much! Continue Reading →

As evil witch Natacha (Krysten Ritter) exclaims in Nightbooks, she doesn’t like stories with “happy endings.” While it’s refreshing to have a children’s horror movie that doesn’t coddle the audience, Netflix's latest is hardly the spectacular, spooky adventure it packages itself to be. Instead, it’s more like the off-brand Halloween candy a kid might get trick or treating. It technically passes as a treat, but not one that will leave kids and parents coming back for more.   Continue Reading →

Netflix is trying really, maybe embarrassingly hard to make He-Man a thing again. With He-Man and the Masters of the Universe their throw-toys-at-the-wall-until-something-sticks approach is genuinely starting to wear out the patience of new and old fans alike.  Continue Reading →

Twelve years after her last film, Jane Campion returns to the scene of feature-length filmmaking with the slow-burn, neo-western The Power of the Dog. Based on Thomas Savage’s 1967 acclaimed novel of the same name, the movie is a character study of repressed desire and masculinity that operates like an unnerving Greek tragedy. The story takes place in 1925 Montana — though the Kiwi-born filmmakers shot the film in her native New Zealand, where big hills and thick clouds create a sense of isolation — and it centers on two rancher brothers who share no resemblance in their personalities. Continue Reading →

The country soundtrack kicks in. The plain, honey-coated lens flairs coat the screen. A truck parks and out steps Mike Milo (Clint Eastwood), met with the distance of his once-good friend Howard (Dwight Yoakam) who, like a soda machine someone’s kicked loose, dispenses copious exposition about Mike’s past. The man was a great rodeo rider before dabbling in pills and drink, and, according to his old pal, his rising age doesn’t help either. Howard wants fresh blood, but it seems the movie doesn’t. The delivery, the detachment, Yoakam’s thoroughly disinterested performance—the film borders on worrying at first. Continue Reading →

For many, present company included, tales of alternate realities contain an undeniable hook to them. As people, after all, we start with so many choices to make, so many avenues to pursue. Sometimes, no matter how happy you might be, one can’t help but ponder how things could be different. What if you attended that other school? What if you went on that one blind date? Those questions sit at the center of NBC’s newest offering, Ordinary Joe. Continue Reading →

Kin, AMC+’s new crime drama, follows in the footsteps of those underworld sagas that came before it. Set in Dublin, mostly in the homes of members of the Kinsella family, Kin focuses on warring Irish families deep in the drug trade. While its story rarely exceeds expectations for subject matter, brutality, or surprise, its performances are excellent, thanks to a team of veteran actors who have numerous scenes full of ample, chewy dialogue to showcase their talents. Continue Reading →

Julia Ducourneau's followup to her stunning debut Raw makes for brutal, beautiful, brilliant body horror. (This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.) Titane begins with the pluck of banjo strings and an extreme closeup of chrome. It’s a clash that’s jarring and compelling: the earthy, fire-and-brimstone howl of David Eugene Edwards’s take on the American folk standard “Wayfaring Stranger” set against an almost voyeuristic tour through a car’s inner workings. Continue Reading →

Eva Husson directs Odessa Young to a stupendous performance of a young woman's birth as a writer in a story about the lingering impact of love. An adaptation of Graham Swift's 2016 novella of the same name, Mothering Sunday begins as a story about wartime loss and forbidden love. Directed by Eva Husson from a script penned by Alice Birch, it mostly takes place over one spring day in 1924 England, just five years after the end of the first World War. It's Mother's Day and the orphaned Jane Fairchild (Odessa Young), who works as a maid in the Nivens (Olivia Colman and Colin Firth) household, is given a day off. Since she doesn't have a mother to celebrate the holiday with, Jane decides to spend the day with the only person in her life, her secret lover Paul Sheringham (Josh O'Connor). The couple makes plans to meet at Paul's house. But on this very special day, Jane doesn't have to sneak in from the backdoor like usual. Paul's parents are not home—they're lunching with the Nivens and the Hobdays, whose daughter Emma (Emma D'Arcy) will marry Paul in about two weeks. As the three families gather at the lunch table near a beautiful river, Jane and Paul seize the opportunity to express their love for each other. They're aware that this afternoon will most likely be the last time they get to be in each other's company, so they make the most of it. Continue Reading →

Ben Platt's age is the least of our problems in Stephen Chbosky's misguided adaptation of an already misguided high school musical. (This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.) There’s a scene toward the middle of Dear Evan Hansen where Larry (Danny Pino) finally allows himself to grieve the loss of his stepson, Connor (Colton Ryan). With his reserve and face crumbling in tandem, he bursts into the family home and reaches for his wife. The camera lingers behind Cynthia (Amy Adams) as Larry tucks himself into her shoulder and her hair sweeps to the side a little. This means that, in this moment of catharsis, the audience is treated to a perfectly framed Lululemon logo on the back of her jacket, right in the middle of the screen, right between a ponytail and a portrait of conquered repression.  Continue Reading →

While we spent a lot of time debating whether or not “elevated horror” is a real thing or just something film snobs made up so they didn’t have to be embarrassed about liking a scary movie, gore fell to the wayside. There was a period when we weren’t getting an acceptable amount of blood and guts, in favor of understated chills and psychological trauma. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course, but it’s left something lacking in the genre. With Nia DaCosta’s take on Candyman and the upcoming Halloween Kills, however, it looks like old-fashioned look-between-the-fingers horror is back in all its splattery glory. Add to that list James Wan’s Malignant, often very silly, but always with a self-aware wink at the audience, with a body count that will satisfy even the most jaded horror fans. Continue Reading →

A man stands in his living room, bent double and screaming into his closed fists. The pain is so new he’s still discovering just how deep it goes, bewildered and terrified to feel that the wound goes all the way into the bone. Watching from the floor of my office as I paint Halloween decorations, I could feel old scars tingling as the wounds under them sang remember that moment? Remember how it felt? Continue Reading →

Hollywood’s love for familiar brands has long since transcended parody and probably reached that point when a generic Transformers knock-off got slapped with the name Battleship. It’s almost scary how unsurprising the thought of somebody reviving the 1990s TV show Doogie Howser, M.D. as a streaming show is despite there being no clamor from the general public for such a property. As far as I know, no die-hard Doogie stans are taking to the streets demanding more stories about teenage doctors getting into shenanigans.  Continue Reading →

KinoKultur is a thematic exploration of the queer, camp, weird, and radical releases Kino Lorber has to offer. I’ll admit it. I believe in sea monsters. We know more about space than we do about the Earth’s watery, cavernous depths. I don't know what's out there! But what I do know is that the monsters in my mind, like all-natural monsters throughout history, embody all that is awesome and terrifying about Nature. Deep Rising (1998) and The Strangeness (1985), two films recently released on home video by Kino Lorber, render such monsters on screen. They play on our deepest fears about the unknown natural world as well as our precarious place within it. Though opposites in terms of budget and financing, both of these pictures touch on similar themes and deliver similar results. Tangled together, these two tentacular tales teach us both about movie making and the deep anxieties lurking beneath the surface of our culture. Continue Reading →

Mary Elizabeth Winstead as the next cinematic revenge thriller brawler is too brilliant not to at least try. Her bonafides in 10 Cloverfield Lane as lead and then clutch supporting turn in Birds of Prey do more than enough to establish precedent. Throw in a unique location (Tokyo) with an urgent, grisly hook (an assassin only has 24 hours to enact revenge), and Kate should be one of the most satisfying Netflix originals to presumably hit the Top 10 in 2021. Sadly, the only watchers who might find this satisfying have either watched too many action revenge thrillers or not nearly enough. Continue Reading →

It’s been said (okay, only I’ve said it) that sitcoms shouldn’t run more than three or four seasons. Any longer than that, and they run the risk of getting stale, resorting to tired tactics like flashback episodes, forced romantic relationships, and adding cute wisecracking kids. So it’s a wondrous thing that, in its third season, What We Do in the Shadows, shows no signs of flagging, of having to fall back on retreads, or even having a musical episode. Despite what feels like a limiting premise, it’s as fresh and funny as ever before, somehow managing to maintain a remarkable balance between raunch and sweetness. Continue Reading →

Nothing better encapsulates the derivative nature of Kay Cannon’s Cinderella than the presence of a trio of comic relief mice (played by Romesh Ranganathan, James Acaster, and, sigh, James Corden). These rodents were not a part of the original Cinderella story; the concept of this lady hanging out with talking mice came about solely due to the 1950 Disney cartoon. Why, then, is this new Cinderella, hailing from Sony Pictures and being released by Amazon, cribbing something from Disney? Because it’s familiar, easy, and cloying, all of which characterize this most recent adaptation. Continue Reading →

Like its stars, Hulu original Only Murders in the Building, a 10-episode series focused on murders, podcasts, and murder podcasts, mixes the old with the new. Created by Steve Martin and John Hoffman, the often-light dramedy stars Martin alongside Selena Gomez and Martin Short, three tenants of a high-rise, upper-class New York City apartment complex. It attempts to appeal to the widest of audiences, from upstart New Yorkers to murder aficionados to TV-watchers who need their grandchildren to set up streaming services. And it (mostly) succeeds. Continue Reading →