Arts Culture

The five worst films of 2024

When we asked our Screens columnist, Justin Humphreys to do a round-up of the year’s movies, he made his feelings clear: “I’m going to have to be very honest and say how precious few good movies there were this year.”  His top five losers are below. Joker Folie a Deux Nicknamed Joker Filet-o-Fish online, few […]

Justin Humphreys | December 18, 2024

Arts Culture

Bloody but unbowed

Australian director George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga traces the origin story of the hit Mad Max: Fury Road’s heroine, Imperator Furiosa (with Anya Taylor-Joy in the role originated by Charlize Theron). Even though Max only appears for a brief cameo, this is a superior prequel that delivers everything viewers expect from the Mad […]

Justin Humphreys | June 12, 2024

Arts Culture

Back to basic

Director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Back to Black details the short, volcanic life of pop star Amy Winehouse. It’s a by-the-numbers music biopic that is mostly unremarkable, with the exception of the film’s cast. Marisa Abela as Winehouse and Jack O’Connell as her husband Blake Fielder-Civil give performances that intensely enliven the film. Winehouse died at age […]

Justin Humphreys | May 22, 2024

Arts Culture

Rockets’ red glare

Alex Garland’s newest film Civil War presents a vision of a war-torn, near-future United States that taps into many Americans’ fears of the worst-case endgame of ever-growing political divisiveness. It’s a promising idea, but this uneven movie is loaded with ridiculous plot holes, and despite delivering several impressive scenes, the film doesn’t maintain its level […]

Justin Humphreys | April 24, 2024

Arts Culture

Master vs. apprentice

Longtime Albemarle County resident Jack Fisk ranks among movie-making’s greatest production designers. His current Academy Award nomination for Best Production Design for Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is well-deserved. Another frontrunner in the category, Ruth De Jong, is nominated for her work on Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. De Jong’s cinematic path to designing acclaimed […]

Justin Humphreys | March 6, 2024

Arts Culture

Goth primer

Director Zelda Williams’ horror comedy Lisa Frankenstein is a mediocre pastiche of older films with an uneven storyline stitched together from overly familiar macabre material. The film will appeal mainly to teens who are only just beginning to discover its sources, but to longtime moviegoers, it plays like ersatz Tim Burton, admittedly with occasionally hilarious […]

Justin Humphreys | February 21, 2024

Arts Culture

Iconoclastic as ever

For many years, filmmaker and UVA film professor Kevin Jerome Everson has figured prominently in Charlottesville’s moviemaking community. His experimental films have continually bypassed cinematic conventions in favor of “formal exercises,” he explains. A regular Virginia Film Festival guest, Everson will screen nine shorts on Friday, “all shot this calendar year,” he notes, and marked […]

Justin Humphreys | October 25, 2023

Arts Culture

Take a seat

The Holdovers Director Alexander Payne is a devoted cinephile who loves the style of intimate, wryly funny, character-driven films that were plentiful 50 years ago but are now nearly extinct. Payne’s films honor this bygone era of storytelling in welcome ways, including his newest work, The Holdovers. Set in 1970, the reliable Paul Giamatti stars […]

Justin Humphreys | October 25, 2023

Arts Culture

Heads will roll

Set in ninth- and 10th-century Europe, Robert Eggers’ brutal revenge saga The Northman is a lavish, sweeping film, but its unrelenting gore will undoubtedly repel many viewers.  Loosely based on the Scandinavian legend that inspired Hamlet, with elements of Macbeth thrown in, The Northman’s antihero, young prince Amleth, vows revenge after seeing his father, King […]

Justin Humphreys | May 11, 2022

Arts Culture

I, robot

Whether you love or hate Andy Warhol’s work, his impact on the arts as a provocateur, businessman, and impresario is immeasurable. Andrew Rossi’s six-part Netflix series “The Andy Warhol Diaries” sets out to pierce the façade its subject presented to the media. The series gives a fairly nuanced portrait of the godfather of pop art […]

Justin Humphreys | April 13, 2022