Minari is a quiet and confident film that wasn’t what I assumed it was going to be about. With a premise like a Korean immigrant family moving to rural Arkansas, I just assumed Hollywood was going to turn out a … Continue reading
I Care a Lot is a whip-smart, crackling, mean little movie about awful people doing awful things. It has a protagonist but it doesn’t have a hero, a good person, or any morals but bad ones. It’s so good that … Continue reading
Judas and the Black Messiah is a drama based on true events but also a solid, energetic crime drama along the lines of The Departed. It’s nice to get a work of historical fact that plays like a serious suspense … Continue reading
The Map of Tiny Perfect Things is another spin on the ol’ time loop formula. We just had the broad comedy take on the Groundhog Day classic last year with Palm Springs and this new film finds its own niche. … Continue reading
Ahh. The end to the To All The Boys trilogy… the epic Netflix saga about a cute teenager and her fraught high school existence. By which I mean, a life full of crises that only a middle class American teenage … Continue reading
Penguin Bloom is a surprisingly – if manipulatively – uplifting film and it worked on me, schmaltz and all. Not that it’s too schmaltzy… I think it’s the right amount of honest and genuine peppered in with a little overkill. … Continue reading
For a movie that sounds like a gimmick, The Kid Detective is surprisingly moving, somber, and dark. It slowly crept up on me and took me by surprise. So much more and so much more moving than I expected. This … Continue reading
I was genuinely pleased (and surprised) at how effective a creepy little thriller What Lies Below turned out to be. I went in blind, just the cover art and a brief description to hint at things to come. And I … Continue reading
American Skin is an angry, powerful film that does suffer from being as subtle as a sledgehammer. Its capital M Message is heavy-handed and direct. But the film is also powerful, very well acted, and shot with a blunt economy. … Continue reading
One Night in Miami has the ambitious idea of placing four iconic African Americans in a motel room and letting the drama flow. Set in 1964 after Cassius Clay (soon to be Muhammad Ali) wins his heavyweight belt, he meets … Continue reading