I Kill Giants movie review: the terrible burden of secret fears
A movie as thrillingly weird as its protagonist. We are totally enrapt by the wonder and the terror of her imagination, and the power of it to create joy and solace.
girls/women
Midnight Sun movie review: Cupid’s shot in the dark
Ah, it’s another “teen falling in love while dying beautifully” romance. When it isn’t sappy and predictable, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Its young couple is perfectly charming, though.
Unsane movie review: is she or isn’t she?
As a piece of craft, this is a smack in the face to Hollywood’s bloated blockbusters. As a piece of pulp, it brings a sharp, smart feminist twist to familiar tropes of cinematic paranoia.
Mary Magdalene movie review: the Gospel of Mary
A fiercely feminist and proudly revisionist historical drama that offers a powerful and much-needed rebuke to modern Christianity. Enrapturingly beautiful and intensely emotional.
Tomb Raider movie review: raiders of the old movie
Another videogame adaptation in which empty avatars run around perfunctorily because that’s what the plot requires of them. There’s no humor, no fizz, no movie magic at all.
Submission movie review: a hot take on gender power dynamics from opposite-world
In the moment of #MeToo, this tale of the relationship between a male professor and a young female student is howlingly out of step and outrageously tone deaf. And that’s on top of its tedious clichés.
Mom and Dad movie review: they’re giving the kids something to cry about
A brilliant, if demented, concept could have been The Purge for parenthood, but it is inadequately explored, and then abruptly dropped by a sudden ending. The entire third act of the film is missing.
In the Land of Pomegranates documentary review: is the Middle East fixable?
The state of affairs in the Middle East may actually be thornier than it seems from afar: that is the position this brave, intimate perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems to take.
Oscar Nominated Documentary Shorts 2018 (90th Academy Awards) review
My pick: “Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405,” a marvelous portrait of artist Mindy Alper, one that challenges us all to know ourselves as well as she seems to, even when it’s incredibly painful.
Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts 2018 (90th Academy Awards) review
My pick: I think the quietly shocking “DeKalb Elementary” may win for its very of-the-moment story about a school office worker’s attempt to de-escalate an invading gunman’s rage via patience and empathy.
