It is the busiest time of year for the film world. With awards season on the horizon, studios are juicing voter ballots with For Your Consideration screeners. As I was recently granted membership into the Online Film Critics Society, this the first year where I myself have been given the honor of receiving these promotional screeners.
Unfortunately, this is also Continue reading Screener Season 2018 Reviews – Burning, The Tale, Destroyer, The Sisters Brothers
Vox Lux appears to be a scathing commentary on the cynical pop music industry (and the cynical nature of fame in contemporary culture) while simultaneously being a sympathetic endorsement of the pop star as a burdening position of symbolic courage and confidence. These two narrative aims clash throughout Brady Corbet’s film, causing both tension and befuddlement.
The immediate callousness is the toughest pill to swallow, and it is a callousness that follows through the remainder of the film. If you can stomach the Continue reading Vox Lux (2018) Movie Review
Jason Reitman’s The Front Runner is Altman without Altman. The opening scene mimics The Player, albeit it less impressively than the eight-minute long take Altman achieves in his 1992 film. The camera pans back and forth across a chaotic scene of media and politics in overlap. Characters talk over each other, their relative distances from the camera dictating how much we can discern of the conversations.
Sonically, it is an impressive and immersive feat. We are drawn into the conversations we cannot hear, to the actors that are in the foreground but just out of focus. The sheer bustle of it all is Continue reading The Front Runner (2018) Movie Review
Steve McQueen is achieving something rare in modern filmmaking: he is a known-name director who does not adhere to auteur theory. With four feature films under his belt, McQueen has ventured into multiple genres, engaging with them using different filmmaking styles.
In Widows, his latest, he takes on the heist genre. With shades of Continue reading Widows (2018) Movie Review
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