The horror genre relies, to an extent, on the utilization of familiar tropes. The use of these tropes can reward and subvert expectations, and how these tropes are used contributes to the film’s effectiveness. Audience familiarity is both an opportunity and a difficulty for filmmakers: Give the audience what they want and they welcome it,…
“Yet if hope has flown away, in a night, or in a day, in a vision, or in none, is it therefore the less gone?” — Edgar Allen Poe Winner of the Critics’ Week Grand Prize at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, I Lost My Body is an animated film about the attempt to recover…
Bram (Ben Platt, “Ricki and the Flash”) is a keen journalist who is stuck working for a small-time newspaper writing lists of recommendation when his heart is set on tackling hard hitting new stories. In addition to writing The List, (such as where to eat the best hot dog), he is also reporting on the…
“And you will look with open eyes, And see the world clear, And when your crying is dried up, Then you will feel your heart, And know a new and deeper love” — Alexi Murdoch There are no men in Céline Sciamma’s (“Girlhood”) Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Portrait de la jeune fille en…
Trauma Center, a brutally dull alleged action movie that nominally stars Bruce Willis (“Glass”) as a world-weary cop, is not the kind of movie that anyone will remember in ten years, or, for that matter, even later this year. Its premise is flimsy, its execution is disjointed, its acting is atrocious, and its conclusion is…
As an adult in her 30’s, hearing tales of mythical creatures such as unicorns, Santa Clause, or RuPaul seem entirely plausible. There’s still some sparkle left in the sun, so they must (like talking M&M’s) exist. Yet I find it hard to believe that we live in a world that still makes movies like The…
The Assistant is no doubt the ultimate reflection of the current times, where the implication of sexual harassment — in part due to the #MeToo Movement — is at its highest alert. In it, filmmaker Kitty Green (“Casting JonBenet”) delves into the tattered psyche of a young woman destined for career-oriented greatness, but gets caught…
