“Superheroes invite metaphors for discrimination by their very nature. People fear what they don’t understand; this is especially true when the “what” happens to be a giant green monster or a Norse god, but what Jessica Jones and Luke Cage lack in enormity or mythology they make up for with power. In “AKA Crush Syndrome,” … Continue reading
“Watching the cast of Brooklyn Nine-Nine come together either in the pursuit of shenanigans or the performance of their jobs is standard routine for the series. In Season Three, we’ve seen whole precinct skive off work in the midst of Holt and Jake’s annual prank war (“Halloween III”), and unite over Captain Dozerman’s passing (“The … Continue reading
“Here’s a conundrum for your average building-vaulting, wall-punching superhero: How do you stop a dude who can monopolize your will from turning you into his own personal arm candy, or enslaving entire families to act as his beaming servants? In “AKA Ladies Night,” Jessica Jones did the bare minimum necessary to establish our leading lady’s … Continue reading
“Documentarian Leah Wolchok’sVery Semi-Serious is a semi-okay movie. It isn’t good. But it isn’t bad. It also, amazingly, isn’t just simply “there.” The film has perspective and an idea of what it wants to say. It’s also quite entertaining for the first hour. But in painting her “partially thorough portrait of The New Yorkercartoonists,” Wolchok … Continue reading
“Occasionally, fate and movie release schedules collude with one another to drop a fresh title on audiences at exactly the right moment. That’s more or less the case with Mediterranea, the feature debut of short filmmaker Jonas Carpignano: Check his picture against the United States’ dialogue on immigration, and you may feel the unnerving sense … Continue reading
A Constant Visual Feast 