Unforgettable movie review: toxic femininity
Sure, Ice Queen is the villain here. She’s the one who’s in the wrong for doin’ ALL THE THINGS she was supposed to do, and her promised man-prize was stolen.
2017 theatrical releases
Finding Fatimah movie review: dating while Muslim
There’s lots to like in this mostly sweet British Muslim rom-com. Pity, then, that it tries too hard, instead of trusting its characters, and sabotages itself.
Clash (Eshtebak) movie review: the view from inside social upheaval
Challenging and provocative, but the limitations it places on itself restrict the appreciation for anyone not already steeped in its culture and politics.
Letters from Baghdad documentary review: Gertrude Bell, the original Lawrence of Arabia
One of the most cinematically beautiful documentaries ever is a phenomenal portrait of a shamefully forgotten woman who helped shape political history.
Raw movie review: girly gory allegory
Cinema as a punch in the gut and not for the squeamish, casting female desire as ravenously predatory in a way that few films have ever had the audacity to do.
The Lost City of Z movie review: archaeology was his religion
An adventure of the intellect and of the heart with the real-life explorer who inspired Indiana Jones, one more about the journey than the destination.
Free Fire movie review: guns a-boring
A 90-minute shootout that never makes us care who lives and who dies. In attempting to send up a cinematic cliché, this only becomes a tedious example of same.
Fast & Furious 8 (aka The Fate of the Furious) movie review: notes from the critics’ ward
EMPs and nukular codes and cyber crap and submarines, oh my! “What does this have to do with us?” Michelle Rodriguez cries, and I’m like I know, right?
God Knows Where I Am documentary review: into her mind
A meditative, enormously sad, and sometimes angry-making portrait; provides a stark peek into a mind mentally ill yet remarkably confident and determined.
The Belko Experiment movie review: team-killing exercise
A one-note scenario that never ups the ante on itself, and never even bothers to use its extreme situation to send up office politics or corporate policies.
