There is an alt-timeline in which Rust, writer-director Joel Souza’s pulpy and pathos-fueled Western, is just another tale of an outlaw in his autumn years. It’s simply the latest entry in a genre whose century-plus history is filled with similarly modest sagebrush epics. After a brief theatrical run, a slightly …
Read More »'The Shrouds' Is David Cronenberg's Most Personal Movie Since 'The Fly'
David Cronenberg would like to have a few words with you about death. There have, of course, been an abundance of folks who’ve shuffled off this mortal coil within the Canadian filmmaker’s nearly six decades’ worth of movies, often in the most baroque, grotesque manner possible. (Who could ever forget …
Read More »'Drop' May Put You Off Dating — and Screens — Forever
Think back to the single worst date you’ve ever had. You know, the one that started off bad before devolving into Chernobyl-level disaster, and that was less a missed connection than a full-on derailment? It may not have ended in romance, but it would always be a night to remember …
Read More »'Warfare' Wants You to Experience What Combat Feels Like Firsthand
They say nothing forms stronger bonds than the shared experience of combat, and that the feeling of deep fraternity forged under fire is as close, if not closer, than the love one harbors for family and country. Warfare understands this. A movie about a single siege on a single day …
Read More »Jason Statham Is the Last of the Strong, Silent Types
Action megastar Jason Statham still looks powerful for a man inching toward 60. And the older he gets, the more worn and lived-in his face becomes, like my therapist’s leather couch. So what if he doesn’t take off his shirt as much anymore? He’s built like a wrestler, but graceful, …
Read More »'On Becoming a Guinea Fowl' Is Shocking, Surreal — and Absolutely Brilliant
There’s nothing like starting a movie with a running gag, and Rungano Nyoni’s On Becoming a Guinea Fowl kicks off with a beauty. A young woman Shula (Susan Chardy) is driving home late at night. She notices something in the road. It’s a body. Not only that — Shula recognizes …
Read More »'Mickey 17': Robert Pattinson Doubles Down on the Art of Dying
Robert Pattinson is dead. Robert Pattinson is reborn. He hath risen! Rinse, repeat. Like a Looney Tunes cartoon penned by Philip K. Dick, Mickey 17 — filmmaker Bong Joon Ho‘s long-awaited follow-up to his 2019 masterpiece Parasite — takes a technological breakthrough and runs its human lab rat of a …
Read More »'The Monkey' Is One Long, Sick Joke Without a Punch Line
“Don’t call it a toy!” This sentiment is alternately groaned and shrieked more than a few times in relation to the title character of director Osgood Perkins’ horror movie, and with good reason: Unless you count the short-lived Fisher-Price’s My First Anthrax kit, most toys do not cause mass death …
Read More »'Universal Language' Is the Perfect Blend of Poetry, Parody and Sexy Turkeys
It’s a sight familiar to anyone who’s been nurtured on a steady diet of international films: Children are sitting in a classroom, getting lectured by an irate teacher. The conversations are in Farsi, which suggests we’re somewhere on the outskirts of Tehran. The fact that one of the students is …
Read More »'Paddington in Peru' Is One Warm, Whimsical Bear Hug
He’s small, he’s brown, he’s furry and rocks a blue duffel coat and a red hat (no, not that kind of red hat) like nobody’s business. His name is Paddington, and for close to seven decades, this tiny London-based bear has delighted discerning young readers with his extreme politeness, his …
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