You’ve got to hand it to Mexican-Canadian filmmaker Gigi Saul Guerrero. What the emerging talent has accomplished in her new Blumhouse picture Culture Shock, premiering July 4 on Hulu’s Into the Dark, took considerable brass, not to mention a keen understanding of genre as…
Read MoreThe Last Black Man in San Francisco, an elegy for the idea of home and a lament for a vanishing culture in San Francisco, took this year’s Sundance directing prize for first-time filmmaker Joe Talbot and is a richly profound film and very nearly…
Read MoreYou wouldn’t know it from the ad campaign, but Blumhouse’s new thriller MA, starring an unlikely Octavia Spencer as an sociopathic, small-town stalker, is a (slightly) more nuanced film than it needed to be, largely due to its star’s determination to layer its shlock…
Read MoreThere’s a scene late in Rocketman where superstar Elton John (Taron Egerton) phones his estranged mother before a sold-out, about to be televised London show, which, tellingly, she’s preparing to watch from her living room. He’s calling to make a confession of sorts, or…
Read MoreBooksmart, Olivia Wilde’s raucous new comedy, is one of the funniest movies in ages, a high school buddy picture for right now, a showcase for two terrific young actresses and a laugh machine that takes off like a shot and hurtles ahead, three jokes…
Read MoreIt is, to put it charitably, a formula. There’s this Small-Town Kid from a working-class background who, despite a lack of know-how or means has Very Big Dreams, and while no one Believes In Her, just maybe, with the help of a Unlikely Mentor,…
Read More“I have all these feelings wrapped up inside of me. I just don’t have anyone I can trust my feelings with.” The mysteries of female adolescence are explored with concentrated poignancy in the short How Does It Start, as a curious twelve-year-old girl comes…
Read MoreLife and death in a small New England town haunt a beleaguered Mary Kay Place in Diane, an assured debut from New York film festival honcho turned feature writer/director Kent Jones, who gives us a doozy of a titular character, a well-meaning caretaker filled…
Read MoreA vacationing family is terrorized by doppelgangers in Jordan Peele’s sophomore outing Us, a tense thriller featuring a high-bar performance from star Lupita Nyong’o and Peele’s signature blend of comedy, terror and social allegory that, for a while at least, proves an enjoyable ride. Peele,…
Read MoreShe’s not exactly looking for love, but she’s open to it. And while she’s not quite lonely, no one in her life seems to have much use for her. She spends most of her time alone, but as she sees it, that’s not necessarily…
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