'I Play Rocky': Going the Distance
... the best two-hour advertisement for believing in yourself that I have seen in a while.
'Fjord': Where the Ice is Thinnest
I suspect it will be called both woke and conservative propaganda, which is usually the sign of a film doing something right.
'Club Kid': Growing Up is Optional, Until it Isn't
This is not a film about a gay man who needs to straighten out his life. It is a film about a man whose community has real value and whose growth does not require abandoning it.
TIFF: First Time in Toronto, and the Films That Made it Unforgettable
... what I did see left a mark, and a handful of films in particular are going to stay with me for a long time.
'You Can See Everything': The Manipulator and the Mirror
The way Fielder spots a stray thread and tugs at it, with the patience of someone who knows he has time, is masterful filmmaking.
A Love Letter to a City: 'The Only Living Pickpocket in New York'
... if you have a father who loves New York and remembers when it was different, take him.
'Godzilla Minus Zero': The King Returns Bigger, Louder, and More Devastating Than Ever
Yes, the title is ridiculous on its face. It is also, if you follow Yamazaki's logic, a genuinely coherent statement about a film concerned with how you balance grief with growth, vengeance with peace, and self-sacrifice with self-preservation.
'Carrie': Never Doubt Mike Flanagan's Timely, Devastating Reimagining That Earns Its Place Beside the Original
Howell finds the tragedy not in helplessness but in wanting, in reaching, in almost getting there before the world takes it away. It is a star-making performance, and the industry needs to pay attention.
'Primetime': Lance Oppenheim's Fever Dream Is One of the Year's Most Unsettling Experiences
From its opening frames, the film plays like a surreal, neon-soaked Lynchian horror, and that register is not a stylistic accident. It is the only honest way to approach this material.
'Pressure': Forecasting Doom, Duty, And The Weight Of One Impossible Decision
... who knew meteorology could feel this stressful?
Two Bozos, One Sociopath, Zero Plan: Macon Blair's Gloriously Unhinged Road Comedy is a Blast
If that setup made you laugh, buckle in. If it made you wince, this may not be your movie. Macon Blair is not interested in meeting you halfway.
'The Sun Never Sets': A Love Triangle That Feels Uncomfortably Real and Impossible to Look Away From
It is one of those choices that makes you want to yell at the screen, but also recognize as something people do all the time when fear and love start colliding.
Destin Daniel Cretton Gives Spider-Man Back to New York, and to Us
There is a particular kind of misery that this character carries best, the kind that accumulates quietly behind the mask, and Holland finally lets you feel all of it.
'Coyote vs. Acme': The Movie Acme Didn't Want You to See, and the One We All Fought to Watch
It is the ideal frame for a character whose entire existence has been defined by the gap between ambition and outcome, between desire and the anvil that lands on your head every single time.
Little Death, Big Feelings : Jane Schoenbrun's Dazzling Slasher “Reboot” Becomes a Bloody Love Letter to Identity, Desire, and Horror Itself
... underneath the blood and camp is something deeply sincere. A film about identity. About desire. About the stories that shape us.
