David Grann’s book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI is the rare example of a bestseller that inspires outrage, at least if read properly. Although I suspect a significant number of copies … Continue reading Now Playing — Killers of the Flower Moon
Talk to Me (Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou, 2023). This horror film, the feature debut by twin brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, employs the sturdy concept of a cursed object that wreaks deadly havoc on a group of foolhardy souls … Continue reading Then Playing — Talk to Me; Scream; Messiah of Evil
Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt, 2023). Kelly Reichardt demonstrates again that she’s a modern master of small, resoundingly human stories. Working from a screenplay coauthored with her regular writing partner, Jon Raymond, Reichardt tells the story of Lizzy (Michelle Williams), a … Continue reading Then Playing — Showing Up; Dear White People; California Split
By all appearance, Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) are a couple cruising to a life of aggressively grabbed bliss. Freshly engaged, they’re intensely into each other and both feeling like they’re on the fast track at the hedge … Continue reading Now Playing — Fair Play
Bottoms (Emma Seligman, 2023). In a manner that recalls the structural alchemy of her ingenious feature directorial debut, Shiva Baby, which took an uncomfortable experience at a mournful gathering and rendered it with the white-knuckle intensity of the greatest cinematic … Continue reading Then Playing — Bottoms; The Window; Pushover
Fall (Scott Mann, 2022). The premise of Fall is so perfectly suited for a feat of inventive B-movie storytelling that its relatively drab execution proves doubly disappointing. Working from a script he co-wrote (with Jonathan Frank), director Scott Mann brings … Continue reading Then Playing — Fall; Air; The Mighty Quinn
The Unforgiven (John Huston, 1960). Adapted from a 1957 novel by Alan Le May, The Unforgiven settles in with the Zachary family, Texas ranchers whose status in their frontier community is set into turmoil when a mysterious stranger (Joseph Wiseman) … Continue reading Then Playing — The Unforgiven; Radio Unnamable; Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
There are few better examples of damning with faint praise than to note that Barbie, the new comedy directed by Greta Gerwig, is better than it has any right to be. It’s true, though. In a cinematic age where it’s … Continue reading Now Playing — Barbie
Until Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a three-hour movie that I would describe as moving at a breakneck speed. For a large portion of its running time, that was my main impression of this biopic of … Continue reading Now Playing — Oppenheimer
It’s the exposition scenes that really tip off director Christopher McQuarrie’s commendable embrace of the inherent ridiculousness of this screen franchise that he’s basically made into his life’s work. Any time that latest Mission: Impossible circles around to another explanation … Continue reading Now Playing — Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Coffee for Two 