In Mexico, the Día de Muertos tradition celebrates life, but also the travels of the dearly departed. Here are three death-themed Mexican films that prioritize spiritual clarity and cultural education, each in its own unique way. México Bárbaro (2014, on Netflix) provocatively captures Día de...

In the 35 years Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes were married (from 1954 until his death in 1989), she starred in seven of the dozen features he directed and appeared un-billed in two others. With their outsized characterizations and heightened emotions (fueled, more often than not, by heavy...

Like any good Gen Xer, I trace my love of horror movies to the made-for-TV movies of the 1970s. Inspired by cinematic blockbusters like Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, and The Devil Rides Out — and by an establishment-averse zeitgeist thrumming with interest in astrology, the tarot and other...

In between Jamie Lee Curtis’ stints in the Halloween movies — after her character’s death in 2002’s Halloween: Resurrection and before her return in this week’s Halloween from David Gordon Green — Rob Zombie launched a remake series that at first promised a new direction for the...

The story in Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity (2007) concerns a young San Diego couple, Micah and Katie, who set up a camera to document the strange occurrences in their house. On the surface, it’s a horror film about battling supernatural forces — not exactly new ground for the genre. But...

In 2018, social media fragility and the internalization of fears keep people trapped, much like the subjects of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) are trapped as they sift through media information while the unthinkable threatens their safety. Even though Night of the Living...

An interest in sex is common ground for most people, but not for me. There’s no onscreen depiction of sex that arouses me. It’s foreign at best and horrifying at worst. Why? Because I’m asexual. Let’s clear a few things up first. No, being asexual is not the same thing as being celibate,...

Jeremy Saulnier knows violence. The director of Hold the Dark (arriving on Netflix this week) makes movies filled with brutal, intense fights and attacks. And they aren’t the sanitized action sequences of blockbuster superhero or sci-fi movies, nor are they the often cartoonish, over-the-top gory...

Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade and Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird have recently been praised for dealing seriously with their young female subjects, the filmmakers giving teenage girls’ lives the meticulous treatment that Hollywood usually reserves for, I don’t know, Breaking Bad, or films about dead...

Some movies conjure up bittersweet recollections while emitting positive vibes. That’s all part of the cinematic experience — relating to subject material but still allowing the deepest cuts to bleed, and immersing yourself in uncensored memories from a more naive time, all in the name of...

Twenty years after Rounders’ release, the gambling narrative remains applicable in a world of post-20th-century hustlers. Written by the creative team behind Showtime’s Billions (Brian Koppelman and David Levien), John Dahl’s film captures the spirit of underground poker and the skillset...

Anarchic cartoons like the old Warner Bros. and Fleischer Studios shorts are always popular with children (even if many of them were not originally written for them) because they appeal to the fantasy of control. Children are not in control of their day-to-day lives, and these cartoons allow them...

When Amazon’s Jack Ryan series debuts this weekend, John Krasinski will become the fifth actor to play Tom Clancy’s CIA analyst in just under three decades. The new Ryan, pitted against Middle Eastern terrorists, comes four years after Chris Pine’s version faced off wit nefarious Russians in...

Based on the evidence of their early shorts and first two features – 2009’s Amer and 2013’s The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears – Belgian filmmakers Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet have internalized the tropes of the giallo to such a degree that they don’t need to quote directly...

In the spring of 1988, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince released the album He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper, featuring the single “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” a massive hit that would go on to win the first-ever Grammy for best rap performance. The album’s next single was to be “A...