Naked Singularity movie review: New York misery
A very good cast makes a valiant go of it, but a hugely ambitious experimental novel has been boiled down to a tepid mishmash of genres: social-justice drama + black-comedy heist + sci-fi mind-bender.
black comedy
Riders of Justice and Pig movies review: rethinking the revenge movie
Two brilliant dramas upend cinematic tropes of male vengeance with precision, patience, and grim humor. These are radical rethinks in emotional maturity surrounding men’s grief, remorse, and shame.
The Suicide Squad movie review: primrose psychopaths (#HBOMax)
Spanks the 2016 film and sends it off to the corner to think about what it did. This one is the definite article: Gory, grim, bleakly funny. Full of feverish, anarchic energy and exhausting cynicism.
Zola movie review: speed bumps in the road trip
A deliciously badass style — part 70s grindhouse, part verité pseudo-documentary — and all-in performances are undermined by an exploitive gaze, and a combination of failed caper and failed satire.
Shiva Baby movie review: secrets, lies, and other adulting
A wonder of emotional claustrophobia and narrative economy. Rachel Sennott is delightfully caustic in this painfully poignant, dryly funny portrait of a deeply awful moment of young adulthood.
I Blame Society movie review: jeopardizing her likability with no f*cks to give
A vicious, delicious Hollywood sendup, deconstructing — like a wrecking ball deconstructs — indie filmmaking, cinematic violence, and the industry’s treatment of women. Write what you know? Hoo boy.
Irresistible movie review: are money and politics irretrievably entwined?
This zingy satire is so perfectly, beautifully Jon Stewart: big and brash, raging with fury at the state of American politics but also underlain with hope that it might be changed for the better.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm movie review: punching way the hell up (#AmazonPrime)
A work of breathtaking audacity. This is as perilous as comedy gets, and it’s very, very funny, often shockingly so. Sacha Baron Cohen’s scathing cultural strikes land like extinction-level asteroids.
Lucky Grandma movie review: brittle old lady
Wild sass, gentle comedy, shivs of poignancy, and instantly vivid characters add up to a wonderful riff on mob movies as a Chinatown granny faces off against gangsters. Tsai Chin is an absolute hoot.
Extra Ordinary movie review: oh, the mundanity!
Sly, sharp, and snarkily underplayed, this instant little masterpiece of fantasy comedy is as occasionally shockingly horrific as it is nonstop shockingly funny, peopled with instant fast friends.
