Best movies of 2019 – first half
No movie has blown my mind this year at this point in 2019, as it had last year (Best movies of 2018 – first...
Dark Phoenix: An Independent Ethos take on the Hollywood tent-pole
Dark Phoenix, the latest X-Men movie, is getting roasted by critics, and none of the pull quotes and hot takes this critic has seen...
Meeting Gorbachev offers a love fest among tragic turns of Soviet...
As someone who came of age during the end of the Cold War, I remember feeling compassion for the leader of what we then...
Hail Satan? reveals The Satanic Temple as crusaders for individual rights
In the wake of recent anti-abortion legislation passing in Alabama and moving along in other states, including the possibility of a similar bill planned...
Long Day’s Journey Into Night embraces dream logic (and 3D) to...
Long Day’s Journey Into Night is only Chinese writer-director Bi Gan’s second film, and he has no interest in winning over any new fans...
Sunset cinematic mansplaining that reveals woman’s early 20th century woman’s experience
With Sunset, the Oscar-winning director of Son of Saul (Son of Saul, a grim out-of-body experience at Auschwitz — a film review) returns with...
High Life puts Eros and Thanatos against space-time
For all the assumptions about what might an art house director like Claire Denis be doing making a science fiction movie, the genre actually fits...
Diane offers a low key look at life under the shadow...
With Diane, writer-director Kent Jones reveals himself as a nuanced filmmaker with a keen sense for everyday life for people weighted by the past....
Death and sex make The Aftermath one of the hottest movies...
There’s a reason that two of the most fundamental concepts in Freudian psychology are named after Eros and Thanatos, the Greek gods of love...
Hotel Mumbai is difficult entertainment to stomach
It’s hard to say if I was entertained by Hotel Mumbai, a movie focused on four horrific days where a group of well-armed terrorists...