When Ridley Scott released “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant,” the main criticism levied against them essentially boiled down to that they didn’t provide the same kind of sci-fi thrills as “Alien” and “Aliens,” two of the most beloved films of all time. Anyone who dislikes those films because they have too much philosophy and not enough […]
“Mothers’ Instinct” gets by on its pulpy potential more than anything else. There’s something intrinsically appealing about watching two phenomenal actresses go head-to-head in an old-fashioned melodrama. Still, director Benoit Delhomme (the excellent cinematographer who shot “A Most Wanted Man,” “At Eternity’s Gate,” and many more) can’t quite figure out what movie he’s making. At
Every afternoon, as Xavier (Atibon Nazaire) pulls into his driveway after work, one of his neighbors, like clockwork, walks by his home talking on his cell phone. Sometimes they greet each other, others they simply perform this unspoken, synchronized ritual we can assume has happened for years. Each instance of this interactions is shot from
Patient and kindhearted, a painted storybook in motion, “Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds” is a lovely glimpse of what animation can be. Directed and cowritten by French moviemaker Benoît Chieux (with writing partner Alain Gagnol), and coproduced in Belgium and France, it’s a work that has a lot of influences, from “Yellow Submarine”
“The Last Front” is a first-rate calling-card movie a medium-budget project that feels much bigger because it puts all the money on the screen, as studio executives like to say, and that will make people want to trust first-time director Julien Hayet-Kerknawi with bigger budgets moving forward. But it seems more likely that it’ll be
“Cuckoo” gets more confusing the more it explains itself. The further writer-director Tilman Singer goes in articulating the strange goings-on that drive this stylish, unsettling thriller, the less compelling it becomes. Trying to comprehend the hows and whys of this twisted mystery creates a distraction from which the film never recovers. Either we needed to
In 2013, Angela Patton gave a TEDXWomen Talk that went viral. She spoke about a program she created in Richmond, Virginia, to bring girls and their incarcerated fathers together in an environment that would make the fathers and daughters feel cherished and connected. These “Daddy Daughter Dances” have been so impactful the program has expanded
The crimes of the Catholic Church are no secret to most citizens of the Western world. Yet, as is the case with many historical recollections, the deliverance of information is often filtered through a lens of whiteness, and victims of color fall to the footnotes. For many non-Indigenous people, the lack of awareness about the
It’s hard to imagine that this summer will see a better crowd-pleaser than “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In,” a nostalgic Hong Kong action spectacular featuring the year’s most thrilling action filmmaking. Unbound by physics or any sense of psychological realism, “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In” is also probably the best comic book adaptation
The tricky part with a docuseries like “Hollywood Black,” particularly if you have a deep reservoir of knowledge about its chosen subject, is realizing that it’ll probably never be as comprehensive as you’d like. After all, the four-part series directed by Justin Simien (“Dear White People”), adapted from the same-titled book by film historian Donald
