When journalist Jessica Bruder toiled away on her book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, I doubt a big-screen adaptation felt like a probably outcome. Bruder’s reportage was on a modern brand of itinerant living, practiced especially by older … Continue reading Now Playing — Nomadland
Judas and the Black Messiah is a mightily ambitious undertaking. Directed by Shaka King, the film has the dual focus implied by the title. Judas is Bill O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield), a petty criminal who’s picked up by the authorities after … Continue reading Now Playing — Judas and the Black Messiah
By his own account, writer-director Lee Isaac Chung wanted to share his own history in a way that it wasn’t actually his history. In the most basic reckoning, there’s nothing especially unique about that approach. It’s the very definition of … Continue reading Now Playing — Minari
The Little Things, the new thriller from writer-director John Lee Hancock, is set in 1990. Except for the narrative convenience of removing cellphones as an everyday tool for the law enforcement personnel, there’s no obvious reason to have this scenario … Continue reading Now Playing — The Little Things
Part of experiencing Sundance only vicariously in previous years was having my curiosity piqued about films being positioned as contender in Academy Awards categories for a ceremony over a year out. It’s blissfully odd to instead actually view and assess … Continue reading Sundance 2021 — Part 2
When Steven Soderbergh picked up the first ever Audience Award for a narrative film at the Sundance Film Festival, in 1989, everything changed. Soderbergh’s film, sex, lies, and videotape, went on to be an arthouse sensation, and Sundance was suddenly … Continue reading Sundance 2021 — Part 1
Four men gather at the edge of a nation that simultaneously exalts and oppresses them. They are famous, and at least a couple of them are generously compensated for the actions that earned them notoriety. They also are confined to … Continue reading Now Playing — One Night in Miami
Promising Young Woman is a gleaming arsenic lollipop with a razor blade hidden in the middle. It’s enticing and delicious but it also induces queasy wooziness, and then, with the barest warning, it cuts deep. The film is merciless and … Continue reading Now Playing — Promising Young Woman
With Soul, Pete Docter positions himself as Pixar’s official conceptualizer of the elusive inner lives of humanity. That’s a lofty pronouncement, to be sure, and is especially hoity-toity to apply it to films that are, at their cores, family entertainment. … Continue reading Now Playing — Soul
When Wonder Woman arrived in movie houses three and a half years ago, there was a lot riding on the amazing Amazon’s shoulders. Although superheroes were solidly established as the dominant building blocks for Hollywood blockbusters, the various films efforts … Continue reading Now Playing — Wonder Woman 1984
