Son of a Gun movie review: wholesale cinematic heist
Misogynistic, predictable, crammed with tonal shifts, and devoid of likable characters. Another young filmmaker has taken all the wrong cues from Hollywood.
teen
Trash movie review: you know, for kids?
This isn’t a children’s movie… and yet it kind of is, too, with its odd mishmash of social realism, action thrills, misplaced comedy, and simplistic drama.
Big Hero 6 movie review: how to train your robot
Joyous and exhilarating. A fresh and funny animated adventure that subverts genre clichés at every turn.
Eastern Boys movie review: pretty boy
Repugnant drama about the tender relationship between a man who pays for sex and the boy he hires. At least Pretty Woman pretended to be a fairy tale.
The Way He Looks movie review: love is all-seeing
A charming teen drama bursting with a warmth and compassion unexpected in the genre, and with a freshly sweet surprise of young love.
Before I Disappear movie review: barely there
The 90-minute expansion of an Oscar-winning short chooses art over heart, and lacks the emotional conviction of its progenitor.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part I movie review: image manipulation
One of the best SF series ever deepens its critique of the power of propaganda in ways complicated, intriguingly contradictory, and a little bit horrifying.
When Animals Dream (Når dyrene drømmer) movie review (London Film Festival)
A social-realist werewolf fantasy in which burgeoning womanhood is a thing terrifying to many a man, particularly if a woman simply will not be tamed.
Say When (aka Laggies) movie review: resisting the path
Charming and off-kilter, this is a rare tale of a young woman struggling with her identity in a way that deals a shock of recognition and never apologizes.
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.
