Frequencies (aka OXV: The Manual) movie review: do you feel me?
A film to warm the cockles of your geeky heart, an incredibly ambitious and profoundly provocative sci-fi drama about ideas that require no FX to sell them.
coming of age
The Sea review: the sands of time are dun-colored
Ciarán Hinds engages in some pointlessly dour Irish brooding at the beach.
Joe review: the violence inherent in the system
Cage finally gets away from his shouty, cartoony madmen, but it’s hard to shake the sense that this was laboriously constructed around him as a showcase.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 review: black and white and web all over
Suffers badly by comparison with the cogent, witty Avengers flicks. This feels like a campy Saturday-morning cartoon left over from the 1970s.
Divergent review: girls just wanna do everything
No, it’s not wildly different than other science fiction, hero’s journey, and adventure movies. Sometimes we call such stories archetypal. Mythic, even.
The Retrieval review: the emotional legacy of American slavery
Deceptively simple and deeply cutting. A remarkable little film, a marvel of American indie filmmaking and of stories typically overlooked.
Geography Club review: mapping the teen terror of being weird
A gentle high-school drama about how little courage it actually takes to break through adolescent panicky silence and embrace everyone’s differences.
Starred Up review: no feel-good redemption to be found
Could be the most realistic depiction of the horribleness and the ineffectiveness of institutional incarceration that I’ve ever seen.
Nymphomaniac Vol 1 & 2 movie review: behold the alien Woman
A salacious yet also tedious portrayal of a woman who would appear to confirm all the nastiest stereotypes about women.
The Missing Picture review: giving cinematic life to unillustrated memories
A blend of documentary and memoir that’s like a dream and a nightmare, though it’s more commendable than actually engaging.
