By the 1950s, Hollywood’s Golden Age was waning, its studio system crumbling in favor of “New Wave” films and younger visionaries. The wholesome names of the 1920s and ’30s were now the distant past, though their legacies would be cemented among Hollywood’s greatest. Nevertheless, pressing on amid this sweeping change were two iconic personalities of…
The title Spider-Man: Far From Home may be lacking, but at least we know Spider-Man is alive and well following his disintegration in “Avengers: Infinity War” (and subsequently, “Avengers: Endgame”). Here Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is quite clearly making a concerted effort to reintegrate himself into teenage life, going so far as to leave his…
One of the main aims of a whodunnit mystery movie is to ensure that the audience doesn’t guess who done it, so by that metric, London Fields misses its mark entirely. It’s the rare movie that plays its cards so early that anyone paying even a sliver of attention during the first two minutes can…
Two ex-convicts working at a dead-end diner are given an opportunity to change things around when a lawyer proposes a heist, unaware that larger antagonistic machinations are hard at work. While this plotline is fairly standard as far as heist capers are concerned, Hadi Hajaig has cranked the tonal voltage up to eleven by infusing…
Obey lays out its elements early on, declaring its setting, its interest and its milieu from the opening shot. Yet, within this shot and throughout the film, writer-director Jamie Jones also defies expectation. In the opening sequence before the titles, a deep focus long take captures six young people work towards the camera, discussing the…
It should surprise no one: Daniel Day-Lewis shines in Paul Thomas Anderson’s bold and elemental romantic drama, Phantom Thread. The 60-year-old, who’s pledged to leave the silver screen, provides a well-sewn performance in this sendoff. And Anderson, an auteur by nearly any standard, dazzles again with masterful scenery, elegant costumes and a deeper look into…
The digital age is slickly skewered on the sharp blade of a knife that cuts a clean swath of revenge through a wealthy family’s existence in sick satirist Yorgos Lanthimos’ genre-blurring The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Lanthimos buries his satirical observations deep and then brushes away select portions of the surface to reveal grim…
