Film diary

The offstage moments are flimsy. The onstage moments are unforgettable.

Setting out to portray a bunch of rich, white college athletes as victims, Fantastic Lies is acutely aware that, even with the facts firmly on its side, it has its work cut out for it. It takes great pains to demonstrate Duke University’s socioeconomic contrast with the community it abuts, and the fact that the school’s venerated lacrosse players are no angels. It acknowledges the epidemic of rape on college campuses, and is careful to… See more →

In Hush, Kate Siegel gives a truly terrific performance as an isolated deaf woman targeted by a psychopath. However, said psychopath is just about the least menacing home invader to grace the silver screen since Home Alone. If you really need to see a disabled person being terrorized, your time would be better spent with Wait Until Dark.

As with much of Kirby Dick’s work, The Hunting Ground isn’t necessarily a great documentary in the formal sense, but it is a powerful work of advocacy, equal parts devastating and inspiring.

Midnight Special is a road movie, and the bulk of its story takes place in the rear-view mirror. Who is this kid, and what are the extent and origin of his strange powers? Why are he and his family being relentlessly pursued by a religious cult and the FBI? Where are they going, and why? Amid the frenetic chase, Midnight Special selectively doles out backstory with patient precision, which makes it quite compelling early on,… See more →

On my second viewing of The Witch, I found a lot more to chew on, thanks in large part to the perspective afforded me by Katy Waldman’s analysis in Slate, especially this bit about the ending:

I can’t overstate just how shocking this moment feels, when you realize that the movie has up until now perpetrated a fundamental deception about its own point of view. All along, [director Robert] Eggers has stood on the Devil’s… See more →

As the counterpart to the devastating documentary The Act of Killing, which showcased death squad leaders gleefully dramatizing their unpunished roles in Indonesia’s 1960s genocide, The Look of Silence is less pronounced but more affecting. Focusing this time on the family of one of the estimated one million victims, it follows optometrist Adi Rukun as he calmly confronts his brother’s murderers, who are readily accessible and forthcoming with gory details. While the previous film tangled… See more →

Yuen Woo-ping is a great action choreographer. He is not a great director. Though Michelle Yeoh lends the proceedings gravity merely by showing up, this superfluous sequel is completely absent the poetry of the original.

Suggested alternate title: The Thankless Domesticity.

Props must be given to The Reckless Moment for being one of the rare films of its era to plainly acknowledge the raw deal women get in society. Of course, the film also reinforces said raw deal by billing its chain-smoking heart and soul, Joan Bennett, beneath James Mason, who gives a weak performance to a weaker character. Along with Bennett and the cacophonous existence written for her, Burnett Guffey’s… See more →

I walked into the theater with my skin practically peeled back in invitation, but The Witch just couldn’t quite get under it, and I’m not sure why. The film is exquisitely crafted, with thoughtful attention to period details, desaturated cinematography that is underlit to terrific effect, and a spare, dread-inducing score. The script is an often compelling examination of a deteriorating family, and how communal isolation intensifies the ill effects of religious fervor and gender… See more →

I... don’t know what I was expecting.

Exhaustive and exhausting, Electric Boogaloo’s overview of Cannon Films’ raucous history covers dozens of the production company’s provocative movies with blinding speed. Given that its subject at its peak averaged nearly one film produced per week, the pace is appropriate, and the clips and talking heads all whiz by so fast that reflection yields little more than an admittedly mesmerizing blur of explosions and boobs. Enough sunk in to convince me to revisit Cannon’s… See more →

Animated films aimed at broad audiences rarely take real advantage of the medium’s expressive potential, opting instead for one or another flavor of mannered representationalism. Boy & the World is a delightful exception, channeling the magical realism of a child’s naïve perspective to create a singularly vibrant, rhythmic aesthetic. Both a polemic and an affirmation, the film is occasionally heavy-handed with its politics, but not enough to undermine its core exploration of a generational spectrum… See more →

As successfully as any film I can recall, Carol captures the desperation that accompanies falling in love, and its fuzzy 16 mm rendering gives it the feel of a memory whose potency is undiminished by distance.