Film Reviews & Insights
We Grown Now
We Grown Now is the latest independent feature by Minhai Baig, whose previous film Hala was also about youths sorting out their uncertain lives in Chicago. I enjoyed that film, [...]
Humane
Humane could have been another Purge, and seems somewhat inspired, if only a bit, by that franchise. That it is not, is a good thing. The film works toward different aims, and [...]
Boy Kills World
Boy Kills World is a pastiche of homages and genres, even forms. The film is packed with some stunning imagery, yet none of it is especially novel or clever. This [...]
Challengers
Luca Guadagnino pivots away from horror films back to romantic dramas that brought him such great notoriety in his earlier work, depicting characters experiencing forbidden love and desire in isolated, [...]
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
After cashing in his chips as a journeyman studio filmmaker for the better part of the 2010's, director Guy Ritchie has been on a streak of his own modestly budgeted [...]
Stress Positions
Imagine a 95-minute lecture, from someone who isn't quite as insightful as they believe themselves to be. A lecture which is a bit funny at times, occasionally gives you whiplash, [...]
Sasquatch Sunset
Indie filmmaking, brothers. Nathan Zellner and David Zellner (Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter, Damsel), rework their Sundance Award-winning short film Sasquatch Birth Journal 2, and could have easily just left this [...]
Housekeeping for Beginners
The dysfunctional and sometimes unstable, more often affecting portrait of a makeshift Macedonian family is evoked in a very thoughtful matter in Housekeeping for Beginners. The absorbing third feature by [...]
Arcadian
Arcadian, a post-apocalyptic horror film, featuring Nicolas Cage in a (mostly) subdued role and performance, owes a lot to other films of this ilk. There are elements of M. Night [...]
The Old Oak
The Old Oak, the latest, and possibly the final film, from legendary director Ken Loach, is as vital, stirring, somber, and clear eyed as the rest of his work. Concentrating [...]
Civil War
An often terrifying and harrowing experience of a not-so-distant future in which fascism and nationalism (I think) wrap themselves in patriotism and two different America's are at war, writer-director Alex [...]