Review: A Faithful Man, 2019, dir. Louis Garrel

There are worse reasons to make a movie than to get two very lovely actresses to kiss all over your face, even when one is terribly age inappropriate and the other is your spouse. Ah, the French. Continue reading →

Review: Arizona, 2018, dir. Jonathan Watson

I run hot and cold on Danny McBride, in the sense that I run hot and cold on Danny McBride projects. If you wish to contain his brand of gregarious psychopathy, you have to build the right kind of cage for him, otherwise you end up with a Danny McBride performance without a structure to … Continue reading →

Review: Take Me, 2017, dir. Pat Healy

I’m not sure I should be reviewing things that Taylor Schilling does. We were classmates in middle school. If objectivity matters in criticism (it doesn’t, but legions of DCEU fans think it does, and who am I to overlook them in discussion of a film that has fucking nothing to do with the DCEU, right?), … Continue reading →

Review: Catfight, 2017, dir. Onur Tukel

Speaking of truth in movie titles, here’s Catfight, a movie that is both honestly and dishonestly named at the same time. It is, in fact, about a rivalry between two women living in New York City, played by Anne Heche and Sandra Oh, but it is not, in fact, about just one “catfight” (here defined mostly … Continue reading →

Review: The Mend, 2015, dir. John Magary

“Writer-director John Magary’s debut feature, The Mend, begins with scenes of domestic discord as brothers Mat (Josh Lucas) and Alan (Stephen Plunkett) each engage their significant others in alternately vague and explicit spats. After some boisterous afternoon delight with girlfriend Andrea (Lucy Owen), Mat invites her rage off-screen before she kicks him out of her … Continue reading →

Go, See, Talk! Review: Klown, 2012, dir. Mikkel Nørgaard

Pancakes, perversity, obscenity, inept adults, gloomy children, and an ill-fated canoe trip through the Danish countryside. If you thought The Hangover “went there”, prepare yourself for Klown, a movie so raunchy as to nearly defy description. Continue reading →

Review: The Descendants, 2011, dir. Alexander Payne

Alexander Payne strikes me as the sort of person who’s incapable of making a bad film. Limited body of work aside, critical success is critical success (which is to say nothing of Payne’s commercial victories in Sideways and About Schmidt), and with his darkly satirical examinations of contemporary American culture Payne has established for himself … Continue reading →

Review: 50/50, 2011, dir. Jonathan Levine

Writing a review for 50/50 presents something of a challenge to me. On one hand, I want to rave to high heavens about it; on the other, I don’t want to oversell it. Every word I write, therefore, walks a fine line between setting up unfair expectations that the film can’t hope to meet and … Continue reading →

Review: Greenberg, 2010, dir. Noah Baumbach

Director Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, Margot At the Wedding) is no stranger to awkward family dynamics; for him, it’s well-tread territory that he’s obviously and contradictorily comfortable exploring in his cinema. Which, for some, might make his latest effort, Greenberg, feel somewhat effortless and even slight considering the source. After all, he’s done it … Continue reading →

A Useful Review: A Serious Man, 2009, dir. Ethan and Joel Coen

Why do bad things happen to good people? It’s a basic if somewhat cliched question, true, but knowing the answer is essential to how you will perceive the latest dark opus of the Coen brothers, A Serious Man. The film’s prologue, a shtetl tale involving a husband, a wife, and a rabbi (who may or … Continue reading →