Creed
★★½ 2.5/4 Although sports movies generally offer one of two endings for the protagonist—win or lose—the true outcome is seldom so binary. Face it; in Hollywood, even the losers win. Moral [...]
writing
Late Chrysanthemums
★★★½ 3.5/4 Co-adapted by Tanaka Sumie and Ide Toshirô—who, together or separately, collaborated with director Naruse Mikio on some of his finest films of the fifties and sixties—Late [...]
The Peanuts Movie
★½ 1.5/4 Pretty much the soulless, uninventive update I was dreading, The Peanuts Movie replaces the tentative melancholy of Charles Schulz’s work with a relentlessly upbeat, [...]
Spectre
★½ 1.5/4 Fifty years of James Bond movies have created multiple constants within the series. Exotic locales. Expensive cars. Hammy villains. Rampant sexism. BOOZE! But narrative continuity? Not so [...]
Animal Kingdom
★★★★ 4/4 One thing you can say about the films of David Michôd—the guy certainly seems to believe in the benefits of strong alpha figures. Or, more accurately, in the detrimental effects [...]
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
★★★★ 4/4 A dark satire of fascism, police states, machismo, and kink, Elio Petri’s Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion stands as a forgotten classic of agitprop, a clever, confusing, [...]
The Martian
★★★ 3/4 Turns out the best thing for latter-day Ridley Scott’s career is to go simple. After a series of films with escalating plot loopiness—from the chowderheaded (Prometheus) to the [...]
99 Homes
★★½ 2.5/4 99 Homes, Ramin Bahrani’s uneven torrent of rage and hopelessness set amidst the 2010 housing crisis in Orlando, may singlehandedly create the scariest new genre of the 21st [...]
What Did the Lady Forget?
★★★ 3/4 What Did the Lady Forget? (Shukujo wa nani o wasureta ka) isn’t considered among Ozu Yasujirô’s greatest achievements but it is a richer film than what it appears on the [...]
Sicario
★★★ 3/4 The new Netflix Pablo Escobar drama Narcos opens with the following title card: “Magical realism is defined as what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by [...]
Film The Madman 