Baronesa is the ironic title of Brazilian director Juliana Antunes’ documentary or docu-drama, a film that presents life in the Brazilian favelas through a number of scenes that primarily focus on the daily lives of two of its residents, Andreia (Andreia Pereira de Sousa), a manicurist/beautician, and her friend, Leidiane (Leid Ferreira). The title’s irony…
I watched Support the Girls right on the heels of “We the Animals” and “Crazy Rich Asians,” and it requires no stretch of the imagination to view this coincidental triple-feature as three distinct and distinctive representations of the meaning and function of family. The employees of Double Whammies — particularly the young, attractive, well endowed…
Apparently, Superman is not the only one that can leap a tall building in a single bound. Ubiquitous action star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has his own grand-style leaping to do with towering buildings in the boisterous, but disjointed, summertime blockbuster Skyscraper. Monotonously recycled, formulaic and exhausting, Skyscraper is a nosebleed of a thrill-ride that…
There’s a conundrum going into David Romero’s Making Fun: The Story of Funko, at least from a critical aspect. The issue is perspective. Documentaries like this work better when there’s a sense of objectivity and recollection. If this were made say, 10-20 years from now, we’d probably have a better sense as to where Funko…
“The slipping grip of what once was that will never be again, slowly turning faded and acid washed until its nothing but a feeling you can’t put a name to.” — September Rose, Nostalgia Boxes are stacked in the living room of six-year-old Frida’s (Laia Artigas) house as she prepares to go and live with…
The Nun, the fifth film in “The Conjuring” Universe, is a hugely flawed and underwhelming horror film that’s both plodding and formulaic. While the film, Corin Hardy’s sophomore directorial effort following 2015’s “The Hallow,” boasts convincing performances from scream queen Taissa Farmiga (“The Final Girls”) and Demián Bichir (“Alien: Covenant”), it fails to leverage its…
Caught between action flick thrills and hefty existential drama, Timothy Woodward Jr.’s film, Silencer, ends up in an unconvincing purgatory which neither excites or provokes. We open with a squad of US Marines in Iraq. It’s all radio banter and “Copy that!” and it looks like it’s been filmed with sunglasses over the lens, so…
