The Sisters Brothers (Jacques Audiard, 2018). The English-language film debut of French director Jacques Audiard rambunctiously tinkers with one of most storied Hollywood genres without ever quite figuring out what sort of neo-Western it wants to be. Sometimes it aims … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — The Sisters Brothers; Our Brand is Crisis; A Bigger Splash
Damien Chazelle’s First Man is a remarkable technical feat. The filmmaker takes the unofficial once-per-generation challenge to intensify the verisimilitude in the cinematic depiction of space travel and rises to it. The title refers to the historic 1969 touchdown on … Continue reading Now Playing — First Man
Drew Goddard’s feature directorial debut, The Cabin in the Woods, has aged very nicely for me. The film’s impish deconstruction of the horror genre was fun from the start, but the layers of cunning stirred in me a long-lasting appreciation for … Continue reading Now Playing — Bad Times at the El Royale
T2 Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 2017). From the moment it was announced, director Danny Boyle’s choice to develop a sequel to his breakthrough film, Trainspotting, struck me as highly suspect, a seemingly desperate creative retreat for a filmmaker whose recent projects — … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — T2 Trainspotting; Game Night; RBG
I haven’t dug into any interviews with Tamara Jenkins to learn the insider story of why over a decade passed between her last film and her latest, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find the reason serves as … Continue reading Now Playing — Private Life
It is now almost quaint to think of A Star is Born as a signature example of Hollywood’s tendency to repeat itself, and yet that’s exactly the status bestowed upon the showbiz tale by the time Barbra Streisand and Kris … Continue reading Now Playing — A Star is Born
A Simple Favor is precisely the film Paul Feig needed at this point in his directorial career. The filmmaker will always have an honored place in my personal pantheon thanks to his efforts on the practically perfect television series Freaks … Continue reading Now Playing — A Simple Favor
Younger generations could be forgiven if they were filled with fury over the planet that has been knocked into disrepair for them. I truly believe that history will incredulously record that the greater political society knew of all the ways … Continue reading Now Playing — Inventing Tomorrow
Any documentarian depicting a current, ongoing social hardship has an inherent added challenge in the filmmaking process. Simply put, reality doesn’t always play along. The desire to wrap up stories with some level of finality — not necessarily tidily, but … Continue reading Now Playing — Crime + Punishment
Director Crystal Moselle’s debut feature was a documentary, the acclaimed depiction of isolated, movie-obsessed brothers called The Wolfpack. It is fitting, then, that Moselle’s first full-length fiction offering is reliant on the foundational skills of observation and spinning a compelling narrative out of the distinctive individuals she meets when traversing the big world with a keen eye. Skate Kitchen takes its name from a crew of young women skateboarders in New York City who Moselle first encountered by chance, recruiting them for the short film That One Day before fleshing out the material to cover the requite ninety-plus minutes. The … Continue reading Now Playing — Skate Kitchen
Coffee for Two 