Review: “Verity”

Midway through Verity— director Michael Showalter’s adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s 2018 psychological thriller novel— Lowen (Dakota Johnson) says at her belated birthday dinner, “I have resting bored face.” It’s a response to Jeremy’s (Josh Hartnett) accusation that she looks like she’s either not listening to him, or is uninterested in what he’s telling her. Humorously […]

Review: “The History of Concrete”

A man whose job is to blast pieces of gum off of sidewalks. A neighborhood who cares for a small fish pond on their block. A business that preserves dead people’s tattoos. A group of spiritualists who spend 52 days out running a 3,100 mile race in a loop around one city block in Queens. […]

Review: “Boorman and the Devil”

Toward the end of Boorman and the Devil— David Kittredge’s impressively thorough and candid documentary about the legendarily troubled production of Exorcist II: The Heretic— the director speaks briefly to Jeff Kanew. Kanew is primarily remembered today for directing 80s comedies like Revenge of the Nerds and Troop Beverly Hills, but in the mid-1970s, he […]

Review: “The End of Oak Street”

It isn’t far into its runtime before the double meaning in the title of David Robert Mitchell’s rather unclassifiable throwback blockbuster The End of Oak Street becomes clear. The first alludes to the film’s literal location, a cul-de-sac at the back of a neighborhood called Flowervale, circa 1982. Our first glimpse of it is one […]

Review: “One Night Only”

As One Night Only, Will Gluck’s portrait of a dystopian hellscape masquerading as a frothy rom-com, approaches its third act, a potential love interest for Monica Barbaro’s Allie caps a whimsically-delivered monologue about how a government mandate forbidding pre-marital sex outside of an annual 12 hour time frame actually makes the act more special and […]

Review: “The Currents”

At first glance, Lina (Isabel Aimé González Sola) appears to have it all. A comfortable life with her husband Pedro (Esteban Bigliardi) and daughter Sofia (Emma Fayo Duarte) in Argentina. A successful career as a fashion designer. So successful, in fact, that she travels to Switzerland to accept an award for her work. The opening […]

Review: “The Odyssey” (2026)

I glided off of Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey in much the same way I do Denis Villeneuve’s Dune movies, the mass appeal of which I decided long ago I will never comprehend. I sincerely believe you can make a serious-minded epic without requiring every cast member to deliver broodingly one-note […]

Review: “Toy Story 5”

I was five years old when Pixar’s first feature-length film, Toy Story, was released in theaters at the end of 1995. Now I’m 35, and the fifth installment of what’s become a classic animated series with an unfathomable amount of supplementary media and that kickstarted an entire studio’s popularity is just entering theaters. It’s so […]

Review: “Leviticus”

What do you do when the object of your desire turns against you— or you turn against it? That tension between lust and livelihood is explored quite literally in writer and director Adrian Chiarella’s debut feature Leviticus, which fast proves to be an incredible concept for a queer horror movie that’s ultimately too sparsely realized […]

Review: “Disclosure Day”

Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day— part fast-paced chase movie, part sprawling collage of cosmic ideas that marries empathy-driven storytelling with blockbuster spectacle—opens with a literal gut punch directed at the audience. The camera, assuming the position of a wrestler in the ring, rockets violently backward as he absorbs a blow from his opponent, and continues to […]