A Most Wanted Man movie review: intelligence afterscape
A smart, classy, slow-burn thriller made up of the stuff of authentic spy work and plenty of bitter irony about modern geopolitics.
drama
Kelly & Cal movie review (London Film Festival)
A simple, honest, deeply satisfying tale of the complex mixed emotions and desires that make up a woman’s life and often exist in secret.
Nightcrawler movie review: how news gets broken
Noirish 1950s cynicism meets nasty 1970s Corman-esque exploitation in a thriller that is uncomfortable, unpleasant, unforgiving, and pretty darn brilliant.
Interstellar movie review: trading worry for wonder
Thrilling intellectually and viscerally, full of stirring notions of what humanity is capable of, and full of hope. A wonderfully refreshing sort of SF.
Mr. Turner movie review: in the concrete abstract
This is no stuffy costume drama but a richly lived-in visit to early-19th-century England that is rough, bawdy, often funny, and more often unsettling.
Le Jour Se Lève (Daybreak) movie review: man on the edge
Serious film fans will appreciate the 4K restoration of this 1939 French melodrama, which has been all but unseen for 75 years.
The Babadook movie review: mother of nightmares
Genuinely horrific and deeply scary in a way that draws on the most primal of emotions. A horror flick with rare emotional and psychological resonance.
23 Blast movie review: do they play football in Heaven?
The clunky script and amateurish performances are not unexpected in the faith-based genre, but its dubious “inspiration” gives even diehard-atheist me pause.
Serena movie review: logging for pulp
What starts out as solid romantic melodrama — almost Golden Age of Hollywood stuff — gets so crazy so fast in so many ways.
Fury movie review (London Film Festival)
A particularly ugly iteration of “war is hell”… and I mean that as a compliment. This is a film that is deeply unpleasant and near genius.
