The Old Guard wants to be the first entry in a franchise very, very badly. Based on the first entry, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and written by Greg Rucka (adapted from his comic series of the same name), that desire is warranted. The Old Guard is populated by complex characters with full backstories, all ripe […]
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“Don’t forget it,” a scrawled note vainly implores its own writer in Relic, a gutting Australian horror movie about dementia and its effects on a family. A nightmare for anyone who has watched someone they love age and their memories slip away, and a cinematic experience made all the more terrifying for its basis in […]
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They say Twitter can’t really change your mind about anything, and maybe that’s true. But it can certainly solidify your thinking, pulling you off the fence about a questionable issue and setting your wishy-washy opinions in stone. Take, for example, me and this cursed video: I had been wavering, for weeks before this video crossed […]
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Truffaut’s famous dictum regarding the impossibility of ever making a truly anti-war film is, usually, equally applicable to movies about cops. Today, in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others at the hands of law enforcement, much of the cultural discourse has been focused on the role movies and […]
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It is fascinating now, in 2020, when Jamie Babbit’s But I’m a Cheerleader is a celebrated cult classic of queer cinema—recognized by the Criterion Collection during Pride, no less!—to look back on the film’s initial reception in 2000. The reviews were, to be blunt, cruel. Slate called it “sniggeringly one-sided” and “lazy counterpropaganda.” Salon described […]
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The first two minutes of Robert Hiltzik’s 1983 feature film crawl forward from the lake setting with overwhelming Manfredini-esque horns and strings. It’s a heavy-handed prompt: you’re supposed to be scared. You’re getting the formula. Or are you? Relatively bloodless and progressive compared to its contemporary brethren but still distressing in its usage of transgender […]
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Demi Moore’s apartment in St. Elmo’s Fire is a truly fabulous sight to behold. Her living room walls are painted a shocking pink that offsets a self-consciously tasteful brown couch and armchair and geometric coffee table. The seating is piled high with pink, blue, and cream colored pillows. Dramatic plants sit on the coffee table […]
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John Lewis, the distinguished Democratic Congressman from Georgia, moves throughout his own documentary, John Lewis: Good Trouble, like one of those elder townspeople you see in Westerns, someone who both walks and talks very quietly, has stories for days, and, despite his solemn demeanor, has probably seen and been through a whole lotta hell. He […]
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In the five years since Hamilton’s debut, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical has saturated popular culture to the point of parody. It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t know the show’s opening lines, or doesn’t have “The Schuyler Sisters,” “My Shot” or “You’ll Be Back” floating through their head at least once a week. All this is […]
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“What do you think you are doing?” yells the village elder, to the boys he cannot see. “Playing a game? Who are you playing with?” Once he’s gone, the younger of the boys retraces the old man’s steps, marching and barking in a spot-on impersonation, and the older boy giggles. The opening scene of Elem […]
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Genre filmmaking is a precise art, and yes, that includes the much-maligned romantic comedy. A number of intangibles all have to click together to make the whole thing work: the chemistry of the leads, the effectiveness of the meet-cute, the difficulty of the obstacles facing the relationship, the triumph of their reunion. There is a […]
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There are so many troubling elements to Force of Nature that it’s tough to know where to begin. Stars Emile Hirsch and Mel Gibson have both behaved reprehensibly (and sometimes illegally) in their offscreen lives for years. The movie’s sympathetically portrayed main characters are cops who disregard the rights and reasonable concerns of everyday citizens […]
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