We’re a quarter of the way through the year so far, and in the realm of cinema (and politics), it hasn’t been the best. There have been a few stone cold classics including “Get Out” and “Personal Shopper,” and some disappointments such as “The Space Between Us” and “War on Everyone,” but we also have […]
Movie
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Aliens Gone Wild
Ziggy would not like this life on Mars
Film snobs forget that some of the best movies ever made are remakes. John Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece “The Thing,” was a remake of the goofy 1951 monster movie “The Thing From Another World.” David Cronenberg’s 1986 body horror shocker, “The Fly,” was a remake of a ridiculous 1958 flick of the same name. What these […]
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Shop Girl
A Horror Movie Unlike Any Other
It’s almost impossible in 2017 to walk into a movie without knowing what to expect. With the advent of Rotten Tomatoes and film trailers coming out six months before the film is released, catching a movie in the theaters is mostly just checking off a list of things we remember from the previews. That’s one […]
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Lightning Bottles
“Beauty and the Beast” can’t help being magical
Every single Disney movie I review seems to come to the same basic conclusion: Disney done did it again. Their new releases could play more like victory laps than anything and still make billions, yet the movies continue to be entertaining and artful almost across the board. Last year’s live-action remake of “The Jungle Book” […]
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Lovesong In A Minor Key
Poetry is alive in cinema
There’s something perfect about a film like this being called “Lovesong.” Every moment of the movie feels lyrical, like the beginning lines of a poem before we can see its form or understand its content. The movie will be categorized as an LGBTQ romance, but it’s also filled with sweeping moments of breathtaking sadness that […]
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Ape-pocalypse Now
Hail To The King… Kong
Sometimes when we go to a movie it’s simply to escape the outside world. As long as the film can transport us to a new world, a different time period or some far-off dimension, it doesn’t much matter if the movie is good or bad. But as a critic, it can be difficult to search […]
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The Kedi’s Meow
This story about cats on the streets of Istanbul is way better than those cat videos you like to watch
“Everything is beautiful if you look at it with love.”-“Kedi” Hundreds of thousands of cats have roamed freely through the streets of Istanbul over the last several thousand years. The people of the city treat the cats like neighbors, not like annoying strays snatching food off tables. Indeed, part of living in Istanbul is making […]
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American Prophet
James Baldwin is Not Your Negro
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” —James Baldwin The sometimes-brilliant ABC comedy “Black-ish” focuses on an upper-class mixed race family as they try to hold on to some of their culture while existing in a mostly-white community. A few weeks ago the show did […]
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Death Wish of a Salesman
Iranian master Asghar Farhadi returns with a new film set in Tehran
In what is probably the only-on-the-nose metaphor of the entire film, “The Salesman” opens in an apartment building nearing collapse. Due to construction next door the foundations of the building are falling away, evidenced by the deep cracks forming along our protagonists’ bedroom walls. Married couple Emad and Rana rush around their crumbling apartment grabbing […]
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Black Lives Shatter
This “social thriller” shows social consciousness can be terrifying
Racial issues are an emotionally charged subject in the world right now, but then again, they long have been. Many films explore this tension to great dramatic effect, but very few of them are horror films. Taking cues from horror classics that use repulsive subject matter to bring the thrills, debut director and screenwriter Jordan […]