Even with the presence of a bona fide Hollywood icon, the lasting enthrallment of Heart of the Beast belongs to that goddamn incredible dog. Where he grabs your gaze and devours your soul is in moments of stillness and focus. Uber will hold a remarkably firm look that will stare down and disarm any living thing in its gaze, be that a bear, a pack of wolves, Brad Pitt, or us—fixated on the big screen with wet corners filling our eyes.
Read MoreWith decent chemistry and plenty of her own zingers, Lili Reinhart sets most of the scenes up, but the endearing transformation belongs to Bateman, in almost an academic Beauty and the Beast-tinged arc. No one is going to call Set It Up director Claire Scanlon’s fourth feature film high art or the next great screwball comedy, but it finds its stride the longer the fake dating carries on and creates our wishes it sticks around for good.
Read MoreMade on an indie budget’s dime with an all-hands-on-deck mentality (including Shelby Gaines helping pen the screenplay with Trench 11’s Matthew Booi), the grit of The Weight is hugely apparent, and it starts with Ethan Hawke. Spitting gravel with every line reading, Hawke weathers the unrelenting march with an understated, yet commanding performance.
Read MoreDespite what looks like a melodramatic premise of coming-of-age tropes in the hands of George Jaques, it is quite astonishing all the unexpected places Sunny Dancer takes its drama, including a very risky sledgehammer twist which I dare not divulge. Nevertheless, the friendship-building relationship dynamics inside its marked weekly chapters are fascinating to behold.
Read MoreThe emotional quicksand in On a String is palpable, yet oddly endearing. Leave it to consummate down-player Dylan Baker to drop the zinger that nails the ideal tone by stopping a small venting rant from his on-screen daughter to say, “I hate to break it to you, but you’re not that special.” In different hands, this could all be stretched to an epic length and height to be played as a Poor Man’s Tar as some kind of toxic roller coaster making larger, bolder points.
Read MoreWith deep empathy and surging urgency, Paul Greengrass issues a call for justice and an end to the exploitation of the poor through this compelling and comparable chapter of history. Beginning and ending thematically with royalty experiencing stormy nightmares at the thought of civil mutiny, the parallels are striking and should, chiefly, be the strongest topic of conversation and inspiration coming out of this movie.
Read MoreWhile his plots have been quite varied over Swanberg’s 20-year-plus career, some tale of love is almost always percolating in the background, often dwelling for long stretches at the pining level. There’s a very peculiar love triangle at the center of Swanberg’s new film, The Sun Never Sets, which epitomizes this energy; only this time, the flailing from attempted grand romantic gestures is the center of the movie, not the subplot.
Read MoreHaving walking Hollywood stereotypes play walking Cold War stereotypes that try to call out and correct actual historical stereotypes turns into a fruitless exercise that ends up reinforcing all three layers of those uncorrected tropes. Even when these two main characters diverge slightly from their norms, they are surrounded by all the other tired caricatures, meaning everyone who came into Mayday pretending ends up still pretending.
Read MoreThat mournful weight must endure a post-pandemic 2035 where scuffles for dwindling resources have pitted survivors against each other. By pitting kill-or-be-killed security against the fading draw of interpersonal humanity, Ridley Scott skillfully balances chaos with contemplation.
Read MoreIt begs the question of what it would actually take to win the attention and approval of the device-centered youths of today. Would it be what’s in the film, as in a set of parents instituting a cold turkey removal of wi-fi, a migration to analog country isolation, and the nudging increase of go-out-and-get-dirty experiences? Sure, that stuff tends to work in fictional movies, but what about stepping out of the movie itself to the theatrical and streaming marketplaces.
Read MoreThis kind of movie, like the characters in peril, live and die by the balance—or imbalance—of poor choices versus good decisions made by the central on-screen characters. Veer too much in the poor direction, and you throw your hands up at the screen too often in fun-dampening frustration. Pile too high in the good direction and everyone is a Mary Sue, and the sense of survival suspense evaporates. The End of Oak Street finds admirable footing in this area amid its surreal premise.
Read MoreA master of all things moody and mysterious, Dafoe is the chief reason to approach this narrative based on Panos Karnezis’s 2007 novel. The enigmatic star, singing and dancing at a few points, is granted all latitude to explore the framed space, and the camera is entranced to follow him. However, back to its ugly soap opera traits, outside of actively worshipping Dafoe completists, absorbing the undesirable heights of Jiménez’s bleak film is hard to recommend.
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