Dream Scenario movie review: (un)likely boogeyman
Nicolas Cage is comedic in a dry, subtle, nakedly painful way, playing with his “Cage rage” persona; his performance is profoundly moving. I only wish the film was more deserving of what he’s doing.
reviews
Trolls Band Together movie review: cheerful kindness, weirdified
There is gentle nonstop chaos in the trippy candy-colored assault. Genuinely good-natured, sweet without being sappy, more strange (in a good way) than kids’ movies usually are, and hard to dislike.
When Evil Lurks (Cuando acecha la maldad) movie review: what rough beast…
The visceral meatiness of this demonic-possession–infectious-zombie combo hits like a blow. The social and political context for the grotesquerie is even more appalling, and so very pertinent.
Killers of the Flower Moon movie review: blood for oil (London Film Festival 2023)
A great American filmmaker on a memory-holed chapter of American history at the intersection of colonialism and toxic masculinity. Massive, epic, and essential. Scorches the earth of our complacency.
Foe movie review: scenes from an apocalyptic marriage (London Film Festival 2023)
The young cast is mesmerizing, but all this dusty dystopia has is vibes and vague metaphors. It only just barely touches on the potential of its science-fiction ideas to explore the human condition.
Cat Person movie review: her too
The cringe of modern relationships stinks up this antiromance. Its bald truths, all but ignored in pop culture, about how women navigate romantic and sexual relationships with men, demand to be heard.
The Creator movie review: meat versus metal
Looks great, but the plot falls apart if you poke it and makes no attempt to grapple with AI’s potential. Instead it renders its robot people as a racialized Other in a clunky metaphor for bigotry.
Brother movie review: who gets away with being reckless
A pall of dread, of terrible suspense, hangs over this powerfully empathetic drama about what it means to be a Black man navigating a racist world. Beautifully performed and structurally intriguing.
My Animal movie review: out of the wilderness (and into a bigger one)
A mysterious, mournful film about proscribed teenaged-girlhood and feral female sexuality. There’s nothing entirely original here, but what it has to say, it says with enormous confidence and panache.
The Dive movie review: don’t hold your breath
Intermittent moments of fleeting suspense punctuate literal and figurative murkiness (I gave up trying to figure out what was going on) as it flails around trying to pad itself out to feature length.
