101 Best Releases Translations Finnish on Max (Page 5)

80 minutes into Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor, the titular surprise attack finally arrives. It is, without a doubt, one of the most virtuosic action set pieces ever committed to the screen, a flawlessly orchestrated symphony of carnage that burns for close to 40 minutes. Everything that you could possibly hope for from a maximalist, hyperkinetic blockbuster spectacle is here. There’s fire cascading, plumes of black smoke rising, bullets and bombs raining down, planes tumbling from the skies, boats being torn asunder, and bodies being flung about like ragdolls. Annihilation and national tragedy have never looked so stunning or—and it feels gross saying this—felt so exhilarating. Continue Reading →

At The Spool, generally, we try to keep the work front and center. We try to center the work, not ourselves. I say all of that here as a preface because I am both a therapist and a therapy client. I’m reviewing In Treatment as a fictional dramatic work, but I’m also honest enough to acknowledge that framing and guiding some of my opinions will be my own experiences and, while I hesitate to use the term, expertise. Continue Reading →

In Las Vegas, the Queen of the Strip, comedian Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) finds out her stranglehold on The Palmetto, her casino home, is slipping. The gambling palace’s owner (Christopher McDonald) alerts her to his plan to take away her prime weekend slots because he needs to appeal to “idiots and people in their twenties,” and Deborah gets him neither. Continue Reading →

While Those Who Wish Me Dead is coming out in theaters this weekend (be safe, especially if you're not vaccinated!), it's probably the movie to benefit most from Warner Bros. pandemic-fueled decision to simultaneously throw their releases up on HBO Max. From stem to stern, Taylor Sheridan's latest feels like the kind of movie you'd find on old-school HBO in the '90s, or FX or TNT, watching with your dad over a holiday weekend. It's silly, forgettable schlock, and yet I can't get too mad at it. Continue Reading →

A Black Lady Sketch Show is the first half-hour sketch comedy show which is written, directed by, and starring Black women, its first season was also nominated for three Emmys. Coming off the back of all those expectations, and with a few new cast members, the second season finds a consistent rhythm of light-hearted entertainment in which these Black women can show how hilarious they are. Continue Reading →

Mare of Easttown may at times feel like it’s kicking a dead horse. It’s a grammatically perfect post-Cardinal Bernard Law, cold-case-comes-alive thriller with rich performances by its entire cast. Yet for a story about a maverick detective purporting to be about more than crime, it follows surprisingly predictable beats, leaving little room for illuminating nuance.  Continue Reading →

For the horror genre, April 15, 2011, marked a handful of notable dates. On one hand, it was the 15th anniversary of when Scream started filming, starting with the 11-minute sequence in which an onscreen Drew Barrymore, thought by the masses to be the star, was eviscerated in the name of her killers' pop culture fetish. The movie not only reintroduced the slasher film back into the mainstream, but it also brought back one of its maestros. Of course, that'd be Wes Craven. Continue Reading →

One of the most fascinating things about Godzilla -- whether in his original Japanese provenance in his long-running series of films, or in the comparatively-recent "MonsterVerse" Westernization of the big lizard, courtesy of Warner Bros. and Legendary -- is that he's so malleable. On the one hand (as with the original 1954 Ishiro Honda film and Gareth Edwards' flawed but philosophically-intriguing 2014 reboot), he can be a poignant vehicle to explore the apocalyptic anxieties of nations ravaged by atomic bombs and climate change. Continue Reading →

"Everything expires. Is there anything in this world that doesn't?" Continue Reading →

In Wong Kar-wai’s Fallen Angels, we follow two parallel narratives. One tells the story of a contract killer (Leon Lai) trying to get out of the game and his agent (Michelle Reis) who is infatuated with him. The other follows a chaotic and mute man, He Zhwiu (Takeshi Kaneshiro), who falls in love with a woman called Charlie (Charlie Yeung) whom he keeps running into. There’s a lot to like here, from the moodiness of Hong Kong to the music, to Wong Kar-wai’s signature stunning lighting. One specific thing which is really fascinating here is how few moments of dialogue are present here, and how that makes this film so effective.  Continue Reading →

Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a good movie. Its cast brings the famous DC superhero team to life through performances that range from reliably solid to very strong. Its action is clear, creative, and in a few places downright stupendous. Its thematic work is interesting, both on its own and in the greater context of its long and winding road to existence. There are multiple moments that qualify as full-on fantastic filmmaking, sequences that successfully connect western superheroes to the larger-than-life feeling of mystical Arthurian lore. To put it simply, I like it. I like it a bunch. Continue Reading →

In 1979, the Village People released the song “Ready for the 80’s” on their double-LP Live and Sleazy. The song is upbeat and bright, full of hope and promise. The group sings “I’m ready for the 80s / Ready for the time of my life” throughout the chorus, and one verse starts “Everything is gonna work out fine / I have faith in this old world of mine / We'll be loving in the bright sunshine.” Listening to this song over 40 years later, you can’t shake a sense of dramatic irony. In the end, the 80’s weren’t kind to the Village People, disco, or queer men in general. As I watched the opening episode of Russell T. Davies' latest mini-series, It’s a Sin, I kept thinking of this song and its optimistic outlook for a new decade, an optimism echoed in the fresh faces of its cast, blissfully unaware of the heartbreak awaiting them.  Continue Reading →

(This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.) Continue Reading →

When I reviewed season one of Selena + Chef this past August, I ended on the note of “I dare not say I hope there’s a season two (because that would mean a longer time for all of us in quarantine), but if we have to spend several more months cooking at home, we might as well do it with Selena.” Little did I know that in January of 2021 the pandemic would still be a raging mess, paving the way for the second season of Selena + Chef. Rather than looking at it like the meal you didn’t order arriving at your table (you know, back when people ate in restaurants), it’s more like a surprise dessert you didn’t know you wanted, because once you dig into season two of Selena + Chef, you won’t be able to resist the charm Selena Gomez and her jovial quarantine pod cooking with chef friends. Continue Reading →

The first thing you need to know about Painting With John is that you won’t come away from it learning how to paint. Host John Lurie admits in the second episode that, because most of his art is intuitive, he doesn’t know how to teach it, nor does he think just anyone can paint. You won’t learn anything about the history of painting, or the process, or even what supplies one needs to pick up painting as a hobby. This show is strictly about vibing, and somehow, it works. Continue Reading →

Nothing heals a broken marriage like the end of the world. That’s one of the takeaways from Greenland, a disaster movie about a massive comet that has Earth, and Gerard Butler, in its crosshairs. Butler plays John Garrity, a structural engineer who finds his marriage to Allison (Morena Baccarin) falling apart, just like the giant comet (named Clarke) that’s breaking up into smaller pieces so it can spread its damage all over the planet before its big chunk hits, creating a mass extinction event.  Continue Reading →

Sixty-six years after she slew Ares, the God of War, and cleared the decks for humankind to fix their proverbial shit and end World War I, Diana Prince, Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), has settled into a new life in Washington, DC. Her apartment, filled with reminders of the “Great War” and the man she loved ever so briefly, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), suggests that while she is alive, she hasn’t truly lived in some time. Continue Reading →