• Showing Up

    Showing Up

    ★★★★½

    Cuts to the quick.

  • Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé

    Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé

    ★★★★

    The editing on this makes Homecoming look like a dress rehearsal

  • The Spook Who Sat by the Door

    The Spook Who Sat by the Door

    ★★★½

    Lawrence Cook flips from dead calm to passionate argument so beautifully

  • Napoleon

    Napoleon

    ★★½

    Ridley Scott’s most buckwild creative choice here is using a track from Dario Marianelli’s score for the 2005 Pride and Prejudice as Josephine’s seduction theme

  • The Wind Rises

    The Wind Rises

    ★★★★½

    “You must live.” A command, a blessing, and a curse.

  • Kokomo City

    Kokomo City

    ★★★

    Really wish this documentary stopped getting in the way of its subjects. I appreciate how frank these women are. The edit and the framing undercuts that frankness sometimes, edging into the fetishization that the women speak out against, sometimes at the same time that they’re speaking about it. I don't want a sanitized version of this film; that would undercut the subject matter in a completely different way. But the illustrative/metaphorical intercut imagery does the movie no favors, because it…

  • Saltburn

    Saltburn

    ★½

    Takes the obvious route every single time

  • Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

    Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

    ★★★★

    Really curious about how this plays with someone who isn’t familiar with the source material at all. Same characters, same setting, same character development, wildly different storyline. I’m becoming increasingly enamored of adaptations that refuse to retread old territory, at least in terms of plot. This one manages to neatly sidestep some of the flaws from the original graphic novels simply by nature of focusing on the side characters and their thoughts, feelings, and dreams. I’ve always liked Ramona Flowers, but I really like her here, as the author of her own story.

  • The Killer

    The Killer

    ★★★½

    This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

    The Killer eats hard boiled eggs the exact same way that David yaks up the facehugger embryos in Alien: Covenant

  • Maestro

    Maestro

    ★★★

    Bradley Cooper's in love with being in love with art, and the first twenty or so minutes show spectacular promise, but once the film's attention gets pulled away to Bernstein's other loves, the power of that passion gets diluted.

  • BlackBerry

    BlackBerry

    ★★★★

    “Mike, are you familiar with the saying ‘Perfect is the enemy of good’?”
    “Well, ‘Good enough’ is the enemy of humanity.”

  • Highlander

    Highlander

    ★★★

    Dudes rock