Review: “Chain Reactions”

What more can you say about a movie so iconic that there’s seemingly nothing new to be said? That sentiment doesn’t deter Alexandre O. Philippe, whose essay films encompass cinematic topics ranging from the obvious (David Lynch’s obsession with The Wizard of Oz, Kim Novak’s role in Vertigo) to the niche (the iconography of Monument […]

Review: “Megadoc”

“I built my career following Francis,” George Lucas states in new interviews conducted by Mike Figgis for his documentary Megadoc, a fly-on-the-wall chronicle of director Francis Ford Coppola’s epic Megalopolis, his decades-gestating, self-financed dream project that— following a lengthy and fraught production— finally premiered at Cannes last year to largely critical pans and mass confusion. […]

Review: “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale”

Fifteen years, six seasons, 52 episodes, and 3 feature films later, change has finally arrived at Downton Abbey. It’s an inevitable fact of existence that the series, which opened with the 1912 sinking of the Titanic and now concludes (presumably) in 1930, the start of a decade rife with worldwide turmoil, has acknowledged while nonetheless […]

Review: “Highest 2 Lowest”

It begins with a sweeping shots of the New York City skyline, just as that magic hour when the sun begins to peak over the horizon hits. The light dazzlingly reflects off the buildings, the water and windows of icons tall and small appearing gloriously warm as the strains of “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” […]

Review: “Sorry, Baby”

A few weeks ago, while rummaging around a cabinet in my office in search of a notepad with some blank pages that I could bring with me to the theater, I stumbled across a morbid little artifact: a thick notebook with gilt-edged pages and a soft, textured pink cover held in place by a metal […]

Review: “Together”

Almost everything about Together— the debut feature from writer and director Michael Shanks— is precise. The formal rigor of its lore-heavy script. The perfectly matched leads in Dave Franco and Allison Brie, long-term partners in real life playing long-term partners on screen. The exquisitely-rendered visual effects, which are just squirm-inducing enough to make the audience […]

Review: “Videoheaven”

One of my most vivid childhood memories occurred in a video store: at the ripe age of eight, I fell to my knees in despair in the check-out line at my local Blockbuster in Ocala, Florida upon hearing that all the store’s copies of Return of the Jedi were checked out. Already dancing on pins […]

Review: “Superman” (2025)

Richard Donner’s 1978 Superman still inspires a sense of awe with each subsequent rewatch, nearly 50 years after its initial release. I can’t quite say why this hold true for me too, seeing as how I wasn’t even alive when it premiered. Maybe it’s Christopher Reeve’s impressive performance, and how he subtly alters his physicality […]

Review: “F1”

The racing sequences in F1 are slick and propulsive. That’s evident from the jump, when former F1 star and current fallen-from-grace-racer-for-hire Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) hops into his car at the 24 Hours of Daytona. The quick cuts and the cinematography (with several cameras positioned inside each car granting a first-hand perspective of the race), […]

Review: “28 Years Later”

Hope. That’s the element of Danny Boyle’s 2002 apocalyptic horror film 28 Days Later that surprised me the most. Of course, a lot of my reaction can likely be credited to the fact that, despite its generally enthusiastic reception, it passed me by until I finally sought it out a couple months ago, and that […]