Netflix Review: Hoon-Jung Park’s ‘Night in Paradise’
“‘Night in Paradise’ isn’t the ideal movie for locked-down streamers, but it’s one that challenges audiences to find silver linings in dark life experiences.”
Embracing Imperfection: ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ Turns 20
“‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ is heartbreaking and life-affirming in equal measure, which is a difficult balance to pull off, particularly in a movie that frequently treats its protagonist quite harshly.”
The Master’s Voice: Gregory Monro’s ‘Kubrick by Kubrick’
“‘Kubrick by Kubrick’ has the effect of placing the notoriously particular and media-shy subject in the room with the eager listener/viewer.”
Netflix Review: ‘This Is a Robbery: The World’s Greatest Art Heist’
“With ‘This Is a Robbery,’ Barnicle manages to pinpoint what probably happened at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on St. Patty’s Day 1990 while amplifying the long-term mystery.”
VVoices: Best Space Horror Films
VVoices #5: Film Critics List the Best Space Horror Movies
Why Criticism: The Difficulties of Depicting Genocide in ‘Quo Vadis, Aida?’ and ‘La Llorona’
“Roger Ebert once wrote ‘it’s not what a film is about, it’s how it is about it,’ and it’s this phrase that I usually return to when thinking about cinema that deals with humanity’s worst impulses.”
Caught in a Bad Romance: On Psychological Horror and Visual Design in ‘Nina Wu’
“‘Nina Wu’ isn’t just a ‘#MeToo thriller’ or ‘slow burn cinema,’ it’s a progressive spin on psychological horror and a master class in visceral visual design.”
North Dakota Environmental Rights Film Festival Review: Shannon Kring’s ‘End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock’
“End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock’ belongs to a tradition of activist filmmaking that draws from investigative journalism as well as from artistic principles and techniques.”
How Questions of Exploitation Stain the Triumph of ‘Grey Gardens’
“The utter sadness of Little and Big Edie’s story is why ‘Grey Gardens’ is so moving — direct cinema allowed this story to be explored with a level of intimacy previously unavailable.”
Netflix Review: ‘Nate Bargatze: The Greatest Average American’
“Bargatze delivers a strong one-hour set in ‘The Greatest Average American,’ even if he seems more interested in referencing his family and friends than owning the stage with original bits.”
Netflix Review: ‘The Serpent’ Suffers from an Identity Crisis
“‘The Serpent’ fashions itself as a serial killer epic, but feels more like an uninspired Jacques Audiard knockoff that shows little interest in deconstructing the psychology of its subject.”
Mannhunting: Exploring Masculinity in the Films of Michael Mann – Part One
Mannhunting #1 by Bill Bria: “The protagonists and antagonists in Mann’s films tend to be mirror images of each other, all of them caught within masculinity’s shackles.”
Somewhere, There Is a Shelter: Queer Futurity in Faraz Shariat’s ‘No Hard Feelings’
“‘No Hard Feelings’ takes queerness as a given, capturing queer joy onscreen while never losing sight of the stark realities of migrants seeking refuge in a still highly xenophobic Europe.”
An Elegy of a Turbulent Phase: On Sudhir Mishra’s ‘Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi’
“‘Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi’ bears the unmistakable stamp of an artist at the very apogee of his creative prowess.”
Collecting Movies with Toby Jones
Greg Carlson Interviews Filmmaker Toby Jones About Movie Collecting
Review: Stephen Kijak’s ‘Shoplifters of the World’
“‘Shoplifters of the World’ seems more affectionate to 2000s conceptions of 1980s nostalgia than to the thing itself.”
Netflix Review: ‘Dota: Dragon’s Blood’ Season 1
“‘All these books, all this magic, yeah, they have potential. But what exactly is ‘DOTA: Dragon’s Blood’ trying to say?”
VVoices: Reactions to 2021 Oscar Nominations
VVoices #4: Film Critics React to the 2021 Oscar Nominations
BFI Flare Review: Anna Kerrigan’s ‘Cowboys’
“Joe’s backstory allows ‘Cowboys’ to explore the difficulty of being young and trans, but never in a way that feels exploitative.”
BFI Flare Review: Marley Morrison’s ‘Sweetheart’
“The way ‘Sweetheart’ approaches the topic of AJ’s sexuality isn’t groundbreaking, but in a world where queer coming of age stories are still defined by the “coming out” part, it feels refreshing all the same.”