Review: “When You Finish Saving the World”

Evelyn Katz (Julianne Moore) is, by textbook definition, a good person; she’s devoted her life to running a shelter for victims of domestic abuse. Her teenage son Ziggy (Finn Wolfhard) might on the surface be considered the exact opposite. He’s a musician penning tunes he refers to as “classic folk rock with an alternative influence” […]

TIFF Review: “The Whale”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 Special Presentations North American Premiere There’s a parallel to be found in Brendan Fraser’s recent career trajectory and the life of the character he plays in “The Whale,” Charlie, albeit a tangential one. After stepping away from Hollywood after being a top box office draw in the 1990s and early […]

TIFF Review: “Pearl”

Toronto International Film Festival 2022 Midnight Madness North American Premiere It was perhaps about a minute into the end credits for “Pearl”—Ti West’s prequel to his film from earlier this year, “X”—that the audience at TIFF’s packed midnight madness premiere erupted into applause and cheers. The image that plays over those credits—an extended, live-action freeze […]

Review: “Bodies Bodies Bodies”

“Bodies Bodies Bodies,” director Halina Reijn’s Gen-Z satire clothed in trappings of a whodunnit from a story by Kristen Roupenian and screenplay by Sarah DeLappe, opens on a tender note. The camera caresses young couple Sophie (Amandla Stenberg) and their girlfriend Bee (Maria Bakalova) as they caress each other, Sophie even going so far as […]

Review: “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On”

It’s often beneficial to step back and observe life from a different perspective. In the case of Marcel, we get a shell’s eye view, but the outlook of this tiny, one-eyed shell creature wearing little shoes is remarkably incisive. “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On” evolved from a series of three short films created by […]

Review: “Men”

The Edenic imagery that propels writer and director Alex Garland’s latest feature film, “Men,” forward shows up early on. Having just arrived at the lavish country home she booked a stay at in order to rest and heal from the death of her husband, Harper (Jessie Buckley) strolls into the estate’s lush garden, plucks an […]

Review: “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Benjamin Franklin said, “in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.” When we first meet Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) she is being swallowed up by the latter, sitting at a table in the apartment above the laundromat she operates with her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), every inch of its surface cluttered with […]

Review: “X”

If overt promiscuity is one of the most obvious markers of a potential victim in a horror movie, then you can probably assume the fates of the protagonists in “X,” a group of filmmakers and actors who travel to a small Texas town circa the late 1970s to make an adult film. But while “X” […]

Review: “Red Rocket”

Mikey Saber (Simon Rex) has just returned to his small Gulf Coast Texas hometown, and before we are actually told anything about him, we can discern a lot just from his face and his surroundings as he sleeps on the bus, the NSYNC pop classic “Bye Bye Bye,” which ends up serving as a sort […]

Sundance Review: “After Yang”

“After Yang” doesn’t look or feel the way most science fiction films do when we think about the hallmarks of that genre. Its environments are warm and organic, not sleek and cold. Visible futuristic technology is replaced by natural touches like plants, and the film’s main character, Jake (Colin Farrell) runs a tea shop. And […]