It's easy to be excited by a thriller, especially an erotic one. The genre is designed to elicit that response in us. But with Babygirl, writer-director Halina Reijn has delivered an erotic thriller so confident and so fully formed that…
Read moreIt might be challenging for some viewers to take activists seriously when they are speaking in tongues. But that is exactly what Petra Costa does in her edgy yet empathetic documentary ‘Apocalypse in the Tropics.’ Overlapping somewhat with the events…
Read moreDutch actress-turned-director Halina Reijn's follow-up to Bodies Bodies Bodies, Babygirl, is a provocative portrait of power struggles within a highly inappropriate relationship. The A24 release, starring Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson (Triangle of Sadness), is already positioned as awards bait…
Read moreEditor's note: The below recap contains spoilers for Pachinko Season 2 Episode 2. Apple TV+'s Pachinko has only premiered two episodes in its second season, but it is already clear that the series is continuing to elevate the genre. With…
Read moreFilm is art, and as a visual medium, it speaks volumes with the images projected on the screen, often without a single spoken word. Marco Perego’s Dovecote speaks to the lives of incarcerated women in this haunting short film. Dovecote…
Read moreThe Union, directed by Julian Farino and penned by Joe Barton and David Guggenheim, aims to blend the thrill of espionage with the light-heartedness of comedy. Unfortunately, it largely misses the mark, leaving audiences with a disjointed and ultimately unsatisfying…
Read moreFollowing the success of Sylvester Stallone's Rocky, one of the biggest trends of the 1980s became underdog sports stories, with one of the more iconic being The Karate Kid. Helmed by original Rocky director John G. Avildsen, the 1984 teen…
Read moreTELLURIDE – If you know anything about the long history of the Catholic Church you know that it can be messy, cutthroat, and political. And that’s just in the confines of the Vatican. It’s no surprise then, that the ritualistic…
Read moreFollowing Jackie and Spencer, Maria is Pablo Larraín's latest snapshot portrait of the publicly glamorous but privately tragic. And after Oscar nominations for Natalie Portman as Jacqueline Kennedy and Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana, one for Angelina Jolie as Maria…
Read moreA few months back, I saw the unrelentingly bleak yet still oddly beautiful 2018 science fiction film Aniara for the first time. An adaptation of an epic poem, it journeys through space with a large group of passengers fleeing an…
Read moreIt’s camcorder dreams of endless screams with the superb shot-on-videotape slasher short Hell Squad, written and directed by Carter Bentley and Grayce Anne Mosier. Cheerleader hazing time! In order for new cheerleaders to be allowed on the squad, they have…
Read moreThe Alien franchise has been a mixed bag over the years—sometimes brilliant, sometimes bewildering. But with Alien Romulus, director Fede Alvarez delivers a cinematic experience that takes the best of what we love about the original films and propels it…
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