Before he was a superstar auteur, a Royale-with-Cheese rock star, the divisive and worshiped motormouth who launched a thousand dissertations and 10 times as many Film Twitter flame wars, Quentin Tarantino was a movie fanatic. It pays to remember this fact — not that the raconteur would ever let you …
Read More »'The Crown' Returns With More Scandals, Princess Di Throwing Shade — and Too Many Storylines
Late in the fifth season of Netflix’s The Crown, Queen Elizabeth (Imelda Staunton) asks her grandson William (Senan West) for help with the complicated remote control for the palace’s new satellite dish. As William flips through the many new channels in search of the BBC, Her Royal Majesty briefly finds …
Read More »The Neo-Nazi Karens of 'Soft & Quiet' Could Be Your Neighbors. That's What Makes Them Terrifying
“I just entered the country with derringers ‘Cause them Karens just turned into terrorists.” — “Energy,” Beyonce There’s something about Emily (Stefanie Estes) that strikes you as being just a little off. Maybe it’s the edginess emanating from this tall, blond woman when we first meet her, though to be …
Read More »5 Things We Learned from the New Phil Spector Doc
Spector, the new, four-part documentary premiering on Showtime on November 4th, is unique among music docs: It’s part true-crime narrative, part monumentally lurid Behind the Music. Directed by Sheena M. Joyce and Don Argott, it takes us through the well-documented story of how Phil Spector went from iconic and contentious …
Read More »'Something in the Dirt': A Kooky, Spooky Journey Through the Minds of Two Paranoid Dudes
In its best moments, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s corny, enjoyable Something in the Dirt is as noisy, spooky, and sense-tingling as a piece of haunted house gothic. Only it’s not set in a haunted house. It’s set in a pair of modest apartments in Laurel Canyon. Helicopters and planes …
Read More »'Causeway' Starts as a Trauma Drama. It Ends as a Testament to Two Actors' Talents
We are, by now, collectively familiar with “trauma dramas” — those movies powered by folks navigating the thorny-to-rocky road to recovery after something life-changing, damaging, physically and psychically disruptive. The cause can differ from film to film: addiction, chronic abuse, the loss of friends and loved ones, enduring a natural …
Read More »'Till': Facing an Unspeakable Murder Through a Mother's Eyes
Chinonye Chukwu’s new movie Till, which is now out in theaters, is a difficult prospect. The basis for its story is the brutal 1955 lynching of the teenager Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi, an event that has endured in the public consciousness largely because of the actions of his mother, …
Read More »'Wendell & Wild' Finally Gives Us a Key & Peele Reunion! (Sort Of)
Let’s lead with the good news first: Key and Peele are back! Kind of. The sketch comedy duo who once gave us the greatest college-football roll calls of all time, and repeatedly mentioned that Liam Neesons (plural) were their jam, have briefly reunited in the name of giving future Goth …
Read More »'Armageddon Time' Will Put You in a 1980s New York State of Mind
James Gray’s Armageddon Time is a movie about a Queens, New York, childhood, inspired by the filmmaker’s own. It’s the 1980s, and Paul (Banks Repeta) is a redheaded middle schooler with an artistic streak, born to a hard-working Jewish family, raised and provided for by his lovably flawed parents (played …
Read More »'Descendant' and 'All That Breathes' Find Hope in Two Different Hells
One of the finest moments in Margaret Brown’s Descendant, which is now streaming on Netflix, arrives by way of a drone shot that unexpectedly alerts us to where we really are. The shot begins at ground level, on a quiet street in Mobile, Alabama, and expands upward and outward to …
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