Enemy: The Right Wrong Man
An analysis of Villeneuve’s dreamy thriller, Hitchcock accelerated to spiritual attack speed. Arachnophobes beware.
2010s
Ad Astra: Space Melodrama
Ad Astra attempts to be a space opera and family melodrama. Failing both becomes additive – even its best intentions seem misplaced from other films.
Midsommar Director’s Cut: Empowerment Horror
Ari Aster’s Midsommar shows the dark side of empowerment, which is its main success. That so many consider it a self-help film is its main curiosity.
1917: Tech Epic
1917 is a capable demonstration of technology matched to an overreaching story. Exactly what meets the eye.
Alice Through the Looking Glass: To the Anti-Wonder
Alice Through the Looking Glass is to wonderment what purging is to eating. It not only robs you of your meal – it even makes you regret it.
Rocco
In Rocco, thematic duplicity is even more apparent in the disjunction between the film and its subject, the international porn “giant,” Rocco Siffredi.
Paddington 2: Steamboat Bear Jr.
Paddington 2 sparkles with manners and a belief in beauty. Everyone was opening the doors for each other on the way out of the theater.
The Insignificance of Language in It (2017)
It is a movie with no individual voice and, appropriately enough, it treats language as an impediment to be renounced.