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” […]
Movies
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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 […]
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Your Desert Island Movie
Bleak is beautiful
Most mainstream moviegoers consider animation to be child’s play. Disney has dominated the industry since the ’40s, so cartoons and kid flicks have been almost inextricably synonymous. That’s the norm in the U.S., at least. While U.S. audiences for animation still might have some growing up to do, the premier animation studio in Japan, Studio […]
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Oscar Sunday Returns
The Source picks the winners (or tries to)
It’s time once again for the Superbowl Sunday of Cinema: The 89th Annual Academy Awards. Since it’s so much fun to predict which way the Academy will vote, only to get mad when the things you love lose horribly, this year we’ll look at the movies and people we WANT to win, versus the things […]
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Maybe a Superhero Will Save Us!
With Lego Batman, not quite everything is awesome
Lego Batman might not be the hero we need, but he’s the hero we deserve. In a city where super villains run rampant and the police and regular citizens are helpless to stop them, we need a masked vigilante to step up and protect us. I’m not talking about Bernie Sanders and Washington, D.C., I’m […]
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One Ring to Fool Them All
Another horror franchise fails to care
Suspension of disbelief in the horror genre is a tricky thing. Horror movies are mostly about rules. Michael Myers is an unstoppable killing machine, but we don’t know why…he just keeps getting up. Freddy Krueger kills in dreams, but can’t do much damage in the real world. Jason Voorhees can take a lot of damage, […]