What has happened to American film directors today? Where are the sociopolitical critiques? The inquiries into government? Observations on the culture wars tearing at our seams? The balls to make a movie actually about the times in which we live? Make way for Spike…
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I had little knowledge of Pete Davidson going into the new Judd Apatow picture The King of Staten Island. I’d never seen his comic stints on SNL and was more familiar with his paparazzi-fueled, pop culture romantic dalliances than anything related to either his…
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In a few short years, Elizabeth Moss has cornered the market on emotionally fraught, through-the-ringer screen characters, from The Handmaid’s Tale’s subjugated Hester to Her Smell’s strung-out rocker and The Invisible Man’s tormented object of obsession. In her latest portrait of turmoil, Moss is…
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How much you enjoy Netflix’s The Lovebirds, a subpar exercise in clowning starring a pair of first-class comedians more talented than their material, will depend on how well you can discard the labored sitcom around them and appreciate laugh-out-loud riffing of stars Issa Rae and…
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I sat down with director/writer/producer Michael Angelo Covino and writer Kyle Marvin at Google HQ to discuss The Climb, their film about a tumultuous but enduring friendship.…
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From its festival debut earlier this year to its streaming premiere this weekend on VOD, the much-praised Sundance Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize winner Never Rarely Sometimes Always, about a pregnant Pennsylvania teen who travels to Manhattan for an abortion, has been widely embraced…
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As evidenced by his last two pictures, eighty-three-year-old British filmmaking legend Ken Loach’s social critiques are as sharp as ever, his eyes still keen to the injustices inflicted on the working poor and, thankfully, offer no indication of slowing down. In 2016, he charted…
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Benh Zeitlin’s Oscar-nominated, 2012 masterpiece Beasts of the Southern Wild was a preternaturally accomplished first feature, a richly evocative portrait of a young girl’s coming of age in a Louisiana delta that was part social, and part magical, realism. As a most deserving Best…
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The to-date best movie of 2020, Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man is a smart, sleek thriller, and one with surprising psychological gravitas. Elizabeth Moss, the go-to for characters fraying under duress, etches out a compelling portrait of a domestic abuse victim trying to put…
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