Locating Realism in The Revenant
The Revenant is a powerful statement on cinematic realism affected but not marred by its real toil. It’s old cinema made epic again.
Based on a Book
Zodiac: Memories of Murmur
The 15th anniversary of Zodiac is the perfect occasion to revisit David Fincher’s best film and see how the thriller epic holds up in 2022.
First Man: Cultural Breakthrough
With First Man, Damien Chazelle takes us to space and still thinks the most important things are the ones we left behind. The best film of 2018.
Brooklyn: Cautious Fairytale
Brooklyn is a well-meaning new version of the kind of movie we used to make much more easily. It’s not masterful, but at least it’s respectable.
Enemy: The Right Wrong Man
An analysis of Villeneuve’s dreamy thriller, Hitchcock accelerated to spiritual attack speed. Arachnophobes beware.
Conan the Barbarian: The Days of Working Out
Conan the Barbarian throws itself into the brutal past, wielding its actor’s charm like a broadsword. Only plot conventions are strong enough to hurt him.
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.
Primal Fear: Open-and-Open Case
Primal Fear reuses courtroom thriller tropes without revising them. But the cast makes them live again, at least as the ultimate TNT cable drama.
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.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: Homemade Magic
The first Harry Potter film is not an epic but an invitation. Dark as a forest. Nice as a librarian. Warm as a fireplace.