There’s a lot of buzz about Shazam! for being the first DC Extended Universe movie that has a healthy sense of humor. Perhaps it’s a consequence of the audience’s exhaustion from grim years of Bats and Supes that the DCEU gives an individual filmmaker the freedom to do whatever he wants. DC initially tried to […]
The hollow shell where human joy ought to be is a fantastically creepy thing. It’s what Tim Burton spent his early years satirizing—the self-satisfied stability (read: stagnation) of suburbia through the eyes of an outsider who finds no satisfaction in it. The smiling husks felt like prison guards enforcing order in a void of lawns […]
With Get Out, Jordan Peele electrified the world of modern horror filmmaking, reinvigorating the potential for strong socio-political messages in harrowing and entertaining packages. The message amplified the scares and vice versa, sending shockwaves all the way to the Academy Awards. With Us, Peele cements his position as a genuine auteur with far more to […]
As Disney finds the next title from its vault to adapt, Border explores what it means to truly update a fairy tale for modern audiences. What is a fairy tale, after all, but a story that explores the space where our world and the realm of spirits, demons, monsters, and other mythological beings overlap? It […]
Films by or about women don’t need to be masterpieces in order to have the right to exist. It’s a point that should be obvious by now, but sadly needs to be made every single time some group with nothing better to do decides that X movie is the next battleground because God forbid a […]
It’s a thin line between glorious camp and total trainwreck, and Neil Jordan’s Greta may be the new gold standard for the former. A storyline that wouldn’t be out of place in a Lifetime original is elevated by the clear delight of Jordan, his crew, and the top-shelf cast bringing their collective pedigree together to […]
Short film blocks are often the highlight of any film festival, but when the Academy Awards come around, audiences are less familiar with them than with other categories. Here’s a rundown of this year’s nominees. Animated Short It would be easy to crown Pixar’s delightful Bao the early favorite on pedigree and name recognition alone, […]
There’s been a quiet revolution happening in family entertainment for the last few years, where movies with broad popular appeal strive to be more than a way to distract your kid for 90 minutes. Whether children internalize it or not, animated films have been dissecting such weighty themes as willful ignorance and authority worship (Littlefoot), […]
Director Karyn Kusama is one of the most interesting directors working today who is not a household name. Her most well-known movies—the groundbreaking Girlfight, the misunderstood Jennifer’s Body and the underseen The Invitation—are very-different-but-terrific showcases for her as a technician. With an ability to extract exciting performances from established movie stars, and a mastery of […]
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were one of the great comedy pairings of Hollywood’s Golden Age, bringing vaudeville sensibilities to audiences around the world. A classic partnering of a physically mismatched pair—one an innocent fool, the other an arrogant straight man—they sold their gags with sincerity and perfect timing. Even if you saw a punchline […]