Review: “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”

Indiana Jones has always been about the past. He is an archaeologist, after all, and his exploits, from the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark to the titular artifact of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, have always married the past with his present day, typically with a supernatural twist. But the […]

Review: “Asteroid City”

Asteroid City, population 87. You can stand in the middle of the highway that runs through it, turn 360 degrees, and absorb the town in its entirety. There’s the cozy roadside diner and neighboring auto shop. The motor court, with its orderly rows of neatly-appointed white cabins (except for Cabin #7, temporarily replaced by a […]

Review: “Elemental”

Elemental is that classic tale of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy makes grand heroic gesture to win girl back. I’d say that with their 27th feature film, Pixar Animation Studios put their own spin on the old romance trope, but they sort of don’t—except that the boy, in this case, is a being […]

Tribeca Review: “Let the Canary Sing”

“She deserves better” was the first thought that crossed my mind as the credits rolled on Let the Canary Sing, Alison Ellwood’s documentary on the life and career of the pop star Cyndi Lauper. Lauper, who became an instant icon of 80s youth with the release of her album She’s So Unusual (which featured songs […]

Tribeca Review: “Öte”

“Wait—you’re here alone?” That’s a question I’ve received a lot over the years, the almost guaranteed first reaction of strangers when I strike up a conversation with them in a city that isn’t my own. I’ve mostly gotten used to it, first from traveling for work, and then from traveling on my own for pleasure. […]

Tribeca Review: “Cinnamon”

Writer/director Bryian Keith Montgomery Jr.’s stylish debut feature film Cinnamon is described as recalling 70s Blaxploitation films. Naturally, this requires some unpacking of that subgenre, whose name was coined literally from a portmanteau of the words “black” and “exploitation.” As much as Blaxploitation movies—whose stories usually revolved around crime and graphic violence—centered around empowering Black […]

Tribeca Review: “Smoking Tigers”

When we first meet 16-year-old Hayoung (Ji-Young Yoo), she’s wandering around the neatly-appointed furnishings of a clearly upper-class home. She finds the bathroom, sits in the bathtub, stretches out. But as much as she seems at ease with making herself at home here, this house isn’t hers. As we glean from the next scene, in […]

Tribeca Review: “Stan Lee”

“If I had superhuman powers, would I still have to worry about making a living, or having my dates like me?” This portion of a quote from Stan Lee that opens the documentary of the same name asks a simple question, but nudges at what made him such a visionary in the comic book world. […]

Tribeca Review: “Rather”

Does anyone watch the evening news live on cable television anymore? The media landscape has altered so drastically over just the last decade alone that between streaming services, cutting the cord, and social media (how many young people especially receive their news in bite-sized chunks from scrolling Twitter or TikTok, regardless of the trustworthiness of […]

Tribeca Review: “Hey Viktor!”

Chris Eyre’s 1998 coming-of-age road trip movie Smoke Signals is more than just a beloved indie comedy and favorite on the film festival circuit. Considered the first Native American directed, written, produced, and acted movie to reach the mainstream not only in the United States but also abroad, it marked a watershed moment in representation […]