For the first 45 minutes, I was wondering if the negative reputation was warranted. There’s some fascinating concepts that Spielberg was playing with here for the set-up: Cold War intrigue, Red Scare paranoia, and ‘50s greaser schtick. Also, the sequence with Indy (Harrison Ford) seeking cover amid a replica suburb strewn with mannequins at an A-bomb testing site is Spielberg at his most politically potent; obliterating the lie of a Norman Rockwell-esque mid-century modern utopia and ushering our aging antifa…
Favorite films
Recent activity
AllRecent reviews
More-
-
Infinity Pool 2023
A splatterpunk White Lotus episode; finally, some “eat the rich” media with real teeth. Writer/director Brandon Cronenberg works well in that specific strain of speculative horror that his father David made his bones in; science-fiction allegories punctuated with bizarre sexuality and extreme bouts of gore. The younger Cronenberg is able to sidestep mere copycat status through his own nihilistic imagination and intoxicating stylings. He conjures up these hermitically sealed worlds and takes pleasure in their unraveling. Here, the set-up involves…
Popular reviews
More-
Uptight 1968
This is one of those subversive movies that makes you wonder how it ever got financed and distributed from a major studio. Directed by Hollywood Blacklisted exile Jules Dassin and co-written by Ruby Dee, the film opens with documentary footage of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s funeral procession (this was released just 6 months after his assassination). Concerning the tactics of a group of Black revolutionaries, this politically charged film possesses a true radical spirit. Questioning the efficacy of King’s favored…
-
The Lighthouse 2019
Like a sea shanty from H.P. Lovecraft, this is pure visionary madness. A mesmeric work of elemental fury with influences from Hitchcock, Dreyer, and Bergman; this chamber piece psychodrama plays like a workplace comedy filtered through a Freudian nightmare. Images of detritus and creatures from nautical folklore abound, creating a fever dream atmosphere that makes the putrid setting feel wholly immersive (all gorgeously rendered in inky b/w photography).
Filmmaker Robert Eggers follows up The VVitch with another meticulously researched period…
