“The accumulated effect of ‘Find Me Guilty,’ with its litany of absurdities, is that it is better to deliver the accused from continued subjugation than to maintain faith in a system that has lost all claim to its moral authority.”
“Hammer’s short length may feel like a detriment to some and seem too sparse, with its brevity making for some awkward moments. That said, it’s a refreshing change from the sprawling crime sagas of late…”
“Hardy provides something alien, both amusing and disgusting, a unique cross between Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance in ‘The Shining’ and Vincent D’Onofrio’s Bug in ‘Men in Black.'”
“‘True History of the Kelly Gang’ explodes like a Molotov cocktail, one that is fueled by punk spirit and more androgynous costuming than a New York Dolls album.”
“In the end, there can be no simple feelings of joy or satisfaction in seeing Batman defeat the Penguin — in seeing the good guy defeat the bad guy — because who’s the winner here, really?”
“‘Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045’ attempts to move the series into full octane action but pushes its philosophical roots to the side.”
“In ‘Night Falls on Manhattan,’ Lumet arrives at acceptance — the system is what it is. He is resigned to his inability to chronicle any meaningful change through his work.”
“As a chronicler of the justice system in a dozen or more films, Lumet is intimately concerned with the ways in which it represses individual thought and fails to live up to its supposedly defining principles.”
“In the cinema of Michael Mann, romance comes fast or not at all, often smothered by the anonymous network of mankind itself or maybe just your job.”
“‘Dry Summer’ and ‘Law of the Border’ remain available as fascinating, engaging documents of a national cinema often forgotten.”
“The thrill of a film like ‘Q & A’ comes in watching how Lumet finds new ways to level his criticisms, harnessing the cynicism that has propelled his work and suffusing each frame with deep, corrupting rot.”
“In Fassbinder’s conception of West Germany following its chaotic autumn, terror takes on the tenor of performance art; like addicts lusting after a fix, the groupuscule seeks ennobling sensation; they must be satiated by “Something symbolic…”
“Rowland’s direction throughout is clean and deliberate, rarely showy. He evokes the kind of barren small town where there is almost nothing to fight over, although some still find a way. There’s a bleakness to all of it, a greyness.”
“‘Miss & Mrs. Cops’ is a genuinely light-hearted movie which never strays into the emotional register of real life or real pain.”
“A thrilling, gloriously gory and gleefully simple exercise in cyberpunk nastiness, led by a crew of done-with-this-shit action movie icons, ‘VFW’ is a relentlessly entertaining riot.”
“Schoonmaker’s contribution to ‘The Irishman’ may be her finest effort: she shapes an epic that masterfully controls pace — accelerating and decelerating it at will…”
“‘The Irishman’ may be the last film of an era. The banquet scene ranks among the most powerful sequences of Scorsese’s career because he allows it, following Visconti’s example, to linger.”
“A showcase of the potent purity of visual expression, ‘Alva’ concerns itself with consequence, more specifically the consequences we attribute to ourselves, as well as those we put upon others we can never truly know.”
“‘Richard Jewell’ is, for the most part, a captivating recreation of a man’s journey through hell and back. Its strong acting and character relationship dynamics are the main selling points, as Eastwood’s sense of direction and pacing are the best they have been in a long time.”
“‘Prince of the City’ is a taxing, draining experience, but one that is ultimately rooted in very real despair; the system, it argues, has failed. If these characters are the products of the American criminal justice system, then it ought to be blown up.”