The protagonist of Last Night in Soho, Edgar Wright’s latest film, can be viewed as a surrogate for any number of filmmakers, including, just maybe, the one who presides over her story. Ellie (Thomasin McKenzie) is a young woman from … Continue reading Now Playing — Last Night in Soho
The Harder They Fall, the feature directorial debut of Jeymes Samuel, is awash in its influences, and that seems to be the point. The film is a mish-mash of Spaghetti Westerns, Sam Peckinpah, John Ford, and Howard Hawks, modernized with … Continue reading Now Playing — The Harder They Fall
American Animals (Bart Layton, 2018). Bart Layton’s heist drama is drawn from an actual crime perpetrated by a group of young men in the early two-thousands, and the filmmaker creatively incorporates documentary — and documentary warping — contributions from the … Continue reading Then Playing — American Animals; Madeline’s Madeline; No Time to Die
Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival is a science fiction film dominated by ideas. His Blade Runner 2049 is a science fiction film dominated by imagery. Dune strikes me as the filmmaker’s attempt to mesh those two divergent approaches together into a singular … Continue reading Now Playing — Dune
Without You I’m Nothing (John Boskovich, 1990). Too much of an iconoclast to have an easy path in the world of entertainment, Sandra Bernhard had to make her own way. In the late nineteen-eighties, she mounted a one-woman stage show … Continue reading Then Playing — Without You I’m Nothing; Love Is Strange; The One and Only Dick Gregory
The Worst Person in the World lays out its structure at the very top. The film consists, viewers are informed, of a prologue, twelve chapters, and an epilogue. The table of contents presented, the film introduces Julie (Renate Reinsve), a … Continue reading Now Playing — The Worst Person in the World
The core conceit of Petite Maman emerges with gentle grace. A young family — mother, father, eight-year-old daughter — returns to a childhood home to clear out the belongings of a recently deceased relative. It is a somber affair, but … Continue reading Now Playing — Petite Maman
I saw the documentary The Eyes of Tammy Faye upon its release, over twenty years ago. After a couple decades of mental erosion, I remember only one moment, but I remember it quite sharply. Unsurprisingly, it’s that exchange, in which … Continue reading Now Playing — The Eyes of Tammy Faye
As a longtime devotee of might Marvel mags, I am familiar with the Chinese hero who is known to be a master of kung fu. In the lead-up to the character making his debut on the big screen, I still … Continue reading Now Playing — Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
I feel genuine sympathy for screenwriters tasked with — or even who task themselves with — providing expositional dialogue in a film with a densely complicated science-fiction premise. While there are some ready-made tactics, such as building the narrative around … Continue reading The Unwatchables — Reminiscence
Coffee for Two 