Search for 2019

Two of the most enjoyable disaster films I have seen in the past half-dozen years have emerged not from the powerhouse studios in Hollywood but from Norway. The first was the 2015 tsunami movie, The Wave, and the second was released in 2019 (b...

In their follow-up to the underrated Good Time, the Safdie Brothers (Benny and Josh) have shown that the some of the most forceful qualities evident in their previous film were more trademarks than one-off experiments. Uncut Gems, although ver...

A naked woman wearing an owl mask. Sex orgies in buried tombs. Skinny-dipping shoot-outs. A serial killer of dogs. A topless woman with a talkative parrot. A girl with a balloon fetish. An aggressive skunk. Enough conspiracies and secret codes...

Untogether, the directorial debut of novelist/essayist Emma Forrest, is a slice-of-life look at the lives of two sisters. Although the film boasts some nuggets of truth, there’s a lot of artifice in the narrative. There’s also an imbalance...

The Upside is a serviceable English-language remake of The Intouchables, a 2011 success at the French box office. Anchored by strong performances and a palpable chemistry between leads Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston, The Upside breathes life an...

Get Out was one of the most talked-about and commonly dissected horror films of the decade and it thrust first-time director Jordan Peele firmly into the spotlight. Now, two years later, Peel has answered the “what’s next?” question with Us,...

An intriguing blend of globetrotting neo-noir and road trip plot elements, The Wedding Guest often seems on the cusp of greatness without ever getting there. The film classifies more as a disappointment than a success because, despite its litt...

Although there are too few movies out there with women of color at the top of the marquee, the way to successfully address this situation isn’t by taking an established concept, applying a gender-reversal, and creating an inferior production...

Although Where’d You Go, Bernadette suffers from an ungainly structure and uneven pacing, the production as a whole is engaging and uplifting. This is due in part to the strength of the cast but also owes something to director Richard Linkla...

Whisper of the Heart was the first Studio Ghibli feature not to be directed be either of the co-founders, Hayao Miyazaki or Isao Takahata, although director Yoshifumi Kondo worked from a screenplay and storyboards credited to Miyazaki. Not unl...