It’s easy to feel like you’ll know exactly what you’ll get once you see stills from Guy Ritchie’s MobLand, which stars Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, and Helen Mirren. But while it features cliches of the mafia genre, MobLand is far from boring. Plenty of things are happening all at once, and in lesser hands, these […]
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x4On September 5, 1972, at the Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, Palestinian terrorists held members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage in exchange for imprisoned countrymen. The ABC Sports team, led by Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard) and Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro), despite their lack of preparation, decided to fully pivot from covering sports to news. […]
High school can be an incredibly cruel place, but it’s not as systematically cruel as the Baekyeon Girls’ High School of the Pyramid Game K-drama. It’s a terrifying twist to regular high school bullying, as it doesn’t just allow kids to bully less popular kids, it creates accomplices, encourages bullying and also gives concrete numerical […]
If you’re expecting a documentary about the particular U2 concert in Sarajevo, to focus exclusively on U2, you’re not really going to get it in Kiss the Future. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it’s probably the best approach for this particular documentary, as it focuses more on the way Sarajevans found […]
Much like creator Taylor Sheridan’s other works (notably Yellowstone), Landman is a sweeping epic about the modern American dream that doubles as an intricate family drama. It mostly succeeds on the former front: Billy Bob Thorton and Jon Hamm go head to head as the gritty roughneck and the slick billionaire, respectively. The series is […]
Except for the fact that it’s a genderswapped reboot starring the Kathy Bates, Matlock is hard to distinguish from the rest of the legal dramas airing on network TV. It follows the same formula shows like Suits, Law & Order, and The Good Fight do, where each episode is dedicated to an interesting case that […]
Documentaries about people suffering from dementia, Alzheimer’s, or other neurodegenerative diseases will always occupy a bit of an uneasy space—how much consent can they really provide in their condition? At what point does presenting their struggles become exploitative? Maite Alberdi’s The Eternal Memory doesn’t entirely assuage these concerns, but it certainly knows better than to […]
Given the seven year success of the original serial killer show, it’s no wonder that Showtime wanted to continue the franchise, spawning off a prequel as a third installation in Dexter: Original Sin. It’s not a terrible idea– after all, how does a serial killer get into killing the way Dexter does? But fans of […]
Between its maximalist production design and increasingly dark comedic set pieces, the most striking thing about Damien Chazelle’s critically misunderstood industry satire is how it strikes a tone closer to tabloid gossip than anything else. As opposed to the clockwork precision of Chazelle’s Whiplash, or the dreaminess of La La Land, Babylon’s restlessness doesn’t resemble […]
In a sea of self-serious legal dramas and police procedurals, The Good Wife spin-off Elsbeth stands out for its quirky and delightfully sunny approach. Like Columbo or (more recently) Poker Face before it, it reveals the killer right at the start. And since the hook is knowing how the crime is solved, not who does […]
Fans of the iconic crime series 24 will find much to like in Rabbit Hole, not least because Kiefer Sutherland reprises a similar role as an above-average agent embroiled in high-profile criminal cases. Despite the years between those two shows, Sutherland still turns in a top-notch performance each time, regardless if he’s in a high-stakes […]
The 2000s film Sexy Beast, is already a niche entry in the crime comedy genre, so if you’re going to make a prequel about it, it better be good. This 2024 series unfortunately is not it. Whereas the film’s performances were explosive and dynamic, the show’s were derivative and cartoonish. Fans of the original will […]
A murder mystery on one hand and a supernatural dramedy on the other, School Spirits is an engaging teen series that recalls plenty of past movies and shows before it. Like Ghost and The Lovely Bones, the protagonist is a murder victim attempting to solve the mystery of her death, and like the BBC/CBS show […]
Combining elements of a police procedural with other action-thriller quirks, Tracker stands as a familiar but nevertheless competently made drama that sits snugly between easy viewing and harder-edged entertainment for adults. With only a few episodes out at the time of this writing, the jury’s still out on whether Tracker will be able to focus […]
Knowing better than to dwell on its title character’s early life in bondage, Lawmen: Bass Reeves grants him his freedom early on and establishes him as a man of inherent dignity and complex emotion. Even in the first two episodes watched for this review, Reeves (thanks to a stellar performance by David Oyelowo) is defined […]
You don’t have to be an avid fan to enjoy Let the Canary Sing, which presents itself as a joyous blast to the past and an enlightening account of How to Make a Superstar in the ‘80s. Lauper had some help from the industry of course (not that she always listened) but she was a […]
Every now and then, you get a romantic comedy that feels just right. The romance isn’t overdone, the comedy isn’t used as a crutch, and there’s no desperate need to lean into cliches. Instead, you have pure chemistry, which in turn fuels an endearing awkwardness and a natural sort of love. That’s what happens in […]
If Special Ops: Lioness seems like one of the many muscly, male-targeted shows out there but, you know, girlified, that could be because it’s created by Taylor Sheridan, the mastermind behind such hypermasculine epics as Yellowstone, Tulsa King, and Mayor of Kingstown. Lioness could have been a chance for Sheridan to prove his versatility by […]
Minari is a film written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung, about a Korean-American family in search of the so-called American Dream. It is an intimate drama that is powerful yet quiet, and filled with moments of innocence. With dreamlike scoring, unique characters, and a captivating climax, this movie tugs on the heartstrings, and serves […]
After loyally covering up for his mafia bosses and serving 25 years of jail time, Dwight Manfredi (Sylvester Stallone) is surprised to discover he’s been kicked out of his New York turf and transferred to Tulsa “middle of nowhere” Oklahoma. It takes a while, but Dwight eventually (and funnily) finds his footing in town, establishing […]
After struggling to recapture the magic of the first few Star Trek series for the better part of two decades, the franchise has finally returned to its original formula of self-contained space adventures, progressive politics, and an unabashedly hopeful tone—all to magnificent results. Strange New Worlds is classic Trek in every sense: from its truly […]
It’s not that being similar to another, successful, animated franchise is a bad thing, but The Tiger’s Apprentice hurries to practically every plot point without properly establishing its setting, its characters, or their relationships. It all means well, and once you get used to its lower production values, it becomes clear that the film has […]
There is a world where all of Little Wing’s ideas make thematic sense, as a story about a young woman reeling from the difficulty of her home life. But as it is now, the film just isn’t tightly woven enough, with various characters and subplots making little effect on the whole and major conflicts barely […]
Though it doesn’t provide a more holistic view of Chinese society even in the context of work and industry, Ascension remains an impressive collection of images that manage to be both awe-inspiring and disconcerting. The film deliberately chooses not to take a stance on any of the things we see on screen, which makes for […]
If you have the patience to get through its rocky first season, Star Trek: Lower Decks proves itself to be an adult animated series that’s deeply committed to getting significantly better with every season. What started as a sort of budget Rick and Morty riff with grating humor and stiff animation has turned into an […]
This British comedy stars Charlotte Ritchie (Feel Good) as a broke young woman who unexpectedly inherits the house of a distant family member. Instead of selling it, she and her boyfriend decide they want to renovate it into a hotel. This doesn’t sit well with the house ghosts, who are already strapped for space. The charming […]
Focusing on the personal over the global, 76 Days serves as a valuable reminder for generations to come, of the catastrophic human cost of a pandemic. The film’s directors (including one or more filmmakers who have had to keep themselves anonymous) take an entirely boots-on-the-ground approach in Wuhan, China. Together they find both humanity and […]
This excellent legal drama starts with a successful partner losing her retirement savings to a Ponzi scheme. The person accused of running the scheme is the father of her newest junior associate. They both find themselves out of options and join a black-run firm that specializes in police brutality cases. From legal questions that start […]
Though it’ll likely have more to offer for those who enjoyed the original Nickelodeon series that ran from 2014 to 2018, The Thundermans Return still does mournfully little with its feature length. There are some promising ideas here relating to what one’s responsibility should be as members of a family, but any heart in the […]
Warning: this workplace series takes everything you hate about corporate life and mirrors it back to you with alarming clarity. It takes place in a morally corrupt multinational called Hampton DeVille, and we mostly follow “junior executives in training” Matt and Jake in their daily goings-on in the office. Sometimes, they’re able to cope by […]
This thriller is about a modern-day Catholic “assessor” who investigates supernatural cases to see if an exorcism is needed. Don’t believe it? Neither does his partner, a prosecution psychologist. The two join forces because, according to the assessor, “possession looks a lot like insanity”, and she can help him distinguish between the two. The heavy […]
There are two seasons of Why Women Kill, and though the first—an anthology set in three different decades—is fun and soapy, the second is what solidifies it as a good show to watch. The latter is set in a single decade, the ‘60s, and follows a soft-spoken housewife named Alma (Allison Tolman) as she tries […]
Daniel Day Lewis absolutely dominates the screen as Daniel Plainview, an oil man whose voice and means of business evokes a sense of calmness and confidence mixed with a terrifying presence. He goes through life by adopting a son, building oil fields near churches and religious people, and getting his way by any means necessary. However, over […]
Kathryn Bigelow has a knack for action-packed scenes without compromising on the affective qualities of film style. It is precisely this combination that makes her a rare gem in American cinema, where the values of entertainment soar high. Point Break is one such example of controlled chaos, impeccable framing, and a convincing use of fast-paced […]
From Korean director Park Chan-wook, who also brought you the far quieter The Handmaiden, comes a movie that is positively terrifying. Its premise alone is enough for any sentient human being to shudder. On his daughter’s birthday, the good-for-nothing Oh Dae-su (played by Choic Min-sik) gets drunk and is arrested by the police. A friend […]
Based in the 1970s, William Miller is a young high school student who hasn’t experienced much in life partially due to his over-protective mother and also due to his awkwardness. His only escape is through the music he listens to religiously. Senior year he stumbles upon the opportunity of a lifetime to write a story […]
Nebraska is a poem distilled into a film. Peter Travers from Rolling Stone says “is it a comedy or a drama? Both at the same time, as life itself.” Everything about it is perfect: the acting, the photography, the story. In case that’s not enough and you need to know the plot to get convinced, I’ll tell […]
Three years before the Wachowskis released The Matrix, their debut, Bound, was already one of the most visually stunning crime thrillers of the 1990s. If you look at the film as a straightforward genre piece, it’s as thrilling as the best of the genre: vulnerable heroines, suspenseful sequences taking place mostly in one enclosed location, […]
You’ve probably watched and heard about enough Holocaust films to expect a formula, but you might want to put all that aside going into The Boy in Striped Pajamas. Bruno, the son of a WWII Nazi commandant forms an unlikely friendship with a Jewish kid his age in his father’s concentration camp. The film is World War […]
There is a chance we will be known as the generation that perfected mixing the two mediums of movie and theater. Think Hateful 8, Horace & Pete, Wild Tales, and Fences! A movie not only packed with Broadway talent, it’s also based on a Pulitzer-winning play by August Wilson. The play element is both strong […]
Filmed with a perfect blend of realism and embellished style, Fresh is a coming-of-age story set in the poverty of the New York City projects, wherein the protagonist “grows up” only by learning to become dangerous and losing his sense of self. There’s no satisfaction in watching 12-year-old Michael (or “Fresh,” as he’s called) use […]
Not to be confused with the American cop thriller with the same name, Shōhei Imamura’s Black Rain is about the atomic bomb, but it’s not really concerned about nuclear warfare. Sure, the film opens with gruesome shots of the day the bomb dropped, not sparing the viewers from the gore and the titular nuclear fallout, […]
It’s 1984 and miners in England are on strike against Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s plans to close pits. Their cause has unlikely appeal for Mark Ashton, a human rights activists who decides to take a group of people who had joined an early Gay Pride parade in London to rural England to show support for […]
A concept this strange deserves a treatment that’s equally as odd, and Review nails the bizarre tone of humor shared by its fellow Comedy Central series Nathan for You: both shows are knowingly dumb at heart but are also completely shameless about making their stars look like fools. Forrest MacNeil (played with utmost dedication by […]
To Hollywood’s shame, it wasn’t until 1998 that a major feature made by Native American filmmakers was released. It was this charming indie gem that belatedly broke that new ground: based on author Sherman Alexie’s The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Smoke Signals retains the irreverent humor hinted at in its source material’s […]
Adventureland is a retro-tinged movie about teens in Pittsburgh working at a run down amusement park during the summer of 1987. It is marketed as similar to Superbad, when in fact the only thing they have in common is the Director. Adventureland is funny, but it is more sweet, tender, and intimate. Touching on themes […]
At the same time a fun, crazy, and meaningful movie about Malcom and his friends, high school teenagers and proud geeks who suddenly find themselves immersed in the underground LA drug scene. It’s a 2015 Superbad meets Boyz in the Hood. But in its essence it mostly resembles another beautiful film, Juno, in the way it evolves around a character played perfectly who you […]
What starts out as a cross between a prank show, a lifestyle series on odd jobs, and a deadpan version of Jackass eventually becomes one of the most unique and genuine television series of the 2010s. Key to Nathan for You being as good as it is, is that Nathan Fielder makes himself the ultimate […]