A Real Pain is a good, not great, film. The film depicts two Jewish brothers cousins (Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin) on a “heritage” tour of Poland and concludes with… Continue reading "A Real Pain (Eisenberg, 2024)"
Earlier this year, I wrote on social media about a documentary chronicling the life of a gay subject, and my review almost immediately received a comment (since deleted) expressing surprise… Continue reading "Chasing Chasing Amy (Rodgers, 2024)"
Exhibiting Forgiveness is the second film I’ve seen in as many days that purports to address autobiographical or personal themes close to the film’s auteur. Director Titus Kaphar says it… Continue reading "Exhibiting Forgiveness (Kaphar, 2024)"
Modernish, Inc. is a good but not great documentary that advances my understanding of a topic — design — that I knew very little about going in. If that’s faint… Continue reading "Modernism, Inc.: The Eliot Noyes Design Story (Cohn, 2023)"
Sometimes a movie hangs in the balance and you don’t know if it is a hit or miss until the end. At other times, a film may reveal itself as… Continue reading "Goebbels and the Führer (Lang, 2024)"
I almost turned it off after thirty minutes. I am glad I didn’t. The irony of that response isn’t lost on me. Another Happy Day is about post-partum depression, and… Continue reading "Another Happy Day (Fiffer, 2023)"
To call Sweetheart Deal a tough watch is to simultaneously say nothing and everything. It is the least a critic can say before checking it off the “to do” list… Continue reading "Sweetheart Deal (Levine and Miller, 2022)"
Tuesday is sort of a mash-up of The Seventh Seal and A Monster Calls, only death is a giant parrot who, instead of playing chess, does some grief therapy. Also,… Continue reading "Tuesday (Oniunas-Pusic, 2023)"
I spent most of Inside Out 2 trying to convince myself that it was significantly better or worse than what my gut was telling me, wondering how a film this… Continue reading "Inside Out 2 (Mann, 2024)"
War and Justice suffers a bit too much from Well-Intentioned Documentary Syndrome. It is one of those films with a serious, self-evidently important topic (the International Criminal Court) that struggles… Continue reading "War and Justice (Gentile and Vetter, 2023)"
