In the increasingly popular subgenre of the meta-horror-comedy, irony is the soul of wit. How else to explain the moment in Freaky when two of its supporting characters — written and cast for their tokenism — run for their lives through the corridors of their school, a purported serial killer barreling down upon them, and the flamboyant Josh (Misha Osherovich) offers this … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2020-21: The big films, with or without cinemas
Few things are as changeable as film release schedules in a coronavirus pandemic. Major movies like Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story and Daniel Craig’s final James Bond flick, No Time to Die, have delayed their openings into 2021. Others – The Glorias, Mulan, Antebellum – have given up on theatrical showings entirely in favor of home video streaming. The good news for … [Read more...]
Pandemic pleasures: What I’m watching on the small screen
Before the shutdown brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, my life and free time were largely consumed by viewing and covering the latest theater openings and film releases. So when I would hear glowing reactions to long-form dramatic television series, I would make mental note of them, wondering when in the world I would ever have time to catch up and view them. … [Read more...]
‘Unfit’ unpacks psyche, not policies, of Trump
When Michael Moore released his anti-Trump screed Fahrenheit 11/9, in 2018, I was still in a mood of electoral shellshock. I was very much seeking an answer to the question the director posed in voice-over at the beginning of the film: “How the f--- did this happen?” It’s amazing how time has made armchair pundits out of all of us. Hindsight being what it is, Trump’s … [Read more...]
‘Burning Ghost’: Go toward the (Hollywood) light
Eschatology is at the heart of French director Stéphane Batut’s Burning Ghost, but to this viewer’s mind, so is capitalism, a concept as eternal as the soul. That’s because even his premature death can’t keep young Juste (Thimotée Robart) out of the labor force. Juste opens the movie in an earthbound purgatory. Newly freed from his dying body but not yet adjusted to the … [Read more...]
‘The Rental’: Sharing the time with horror
If you’ve seen The Rental and were at all affected by it, you may never vacation the same way again. Specifically, if you check into a rental property — an idyllic, too-good-to-be-true, cliff-hugging property on the Pacific Coast, perhaps — the first thing you will do is inspect the showerheads. You will be looking for hidden cameras. Voyeurism is a central theme of Dave … [Read more...]
“The 11th Green”: ETs-and-Eisenhower flick loses sight of the drama
On the night of Feb. 20, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower interrupted a vacation in Palm Springs, Calif. Some say he made an unexpected visit to Edwards Air Force Base. There, in the secret meeting to end all secret meetings, he rendezvoused with a pair of angelic, white-haired, blue-eyed extraterrestrials, who cautioned the president — to no avail — to eliminate his … [Read more...]
Ambitious ‘Radioactive’ captures Curie’s psychology, shortchanges her work
The discovery that would change humanity forever arrives relatively early in Radioactive, the long-awaited biopic of Marie Curie. We’re not 30 minutes in, and she’s already captured the phenomenon of radioactivity, in all its Ectoplasmic-green glow, in a tiny vial. It happens after a perfunctory montage of beakers and equations, of Marie (Rosamund Pike) and her husband and … [Read more...]
Starry ‘The Truth’ too insular to make deep impact
To note that The Truth is Hirokazu Kore-eda’s starriest movie to date is to understate. While the Japanese director’s previous 13 films have been cast with actors unfamiliar to the non-cinephile masses, and often earn little more than festival and art-house exhibition, his latest has all the ingredients for broader appeal and a wide theatrical opening — something it was poised … [Read more...]
The View From Home: A Dardenne brothers masterpiece and more
When I started writing the View From Home column for this website in 2010, it was single-focused on physical media — the Blu-rays and DVDs that had yet to be usurped by the streaming juggernauts. Times have changed, and while I too have integrated streaming for the majority of home viewing, exciting physical media still drops every week, and for certain titles it remains … [Read more...]