When an unassuming little 2012 fantasy about hunky male strippers is parlayed into a multi-installment franchise across more than a decade, we are at a tipping point with American movie consumerism. While such box office pursuit may be de rigueur for the junk food…
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In Victor Nunez’ superb 1992 indie drama Ruby in Paradise, a young Ashley Judd fled the Tennessee sticks for a life on her own in Panama City Beach, Florida, eking out a living in souvenir trinket shop. During one key scene she encountered a…
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In the new romantic comedy Somebody I Used to Know (Prime Video, February 10), Alison Brie stars as a successful Hollywood journalist facing a professional crisis who returns to her hometown of Leavenworth, Washington, to plan her next move. What she doesn’t expect, after…
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M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin, about a life-or-death dilemma and impending apocalypse, is a thought-provoking exercise in tension open to a number of interpretations. Is it merely about a scary home invasion or the genuine threat of human extinction? Blind faith versus…
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Exquisitely observed and deeply felt, Lukas Dhont’s Cannes Grand Prix winner Close is an adolescent coming-of-age picture told with such heartstopping sensitivity that it instantly ranks amongst the best films ever made about childhood loss—that of our friendships, our innocence and, sometimes, those we…
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An intermittently intriguing exercise in designer depravity, Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool, about a failed novelist on a seaside vacation turned tour of hell, is gripping fun until it isn’t. It has its merits—chiefly very good performances by Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth—but wears out…
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It’s that time of year again—when Oscar casts his golden glow on the highest achievements of the movie year (or at least those with the largest publicity budgets). Who made the list? Who was snubbed? What do the nominations tell us about who or…
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The picture is an unmistakable critique of slavish devotion to small town articles of faith and the dangers of violating such credos, and a rebuke to small minded fears of the outside world.…
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The notion of women punching their way through the predetermined confines of male orders and role restrictions has never, at any point in time, not seemed of its current moment. It’s also an urgent theme in many a novel or film as women challenge…
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The January movie landscape (often referred to as “the dumping ground”) is typically not synonymous with intelligence and discernment, particularly amongst the usual crop of horror pictures that kick off each new year. Yet those qualities are exactly the drivers of the cautionary new…
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