Watching Paul Schrader’s latest film is like sitting in an early ’90s medical center waiting room. While you wait, there isn’t much to occupy your time except to look at paintings, magazines or the outdated furniture. Schrader creates a world in “The Card Counter” that’s inescapably dull on purpose. His characters have arrived at the […]
Erin Brockovich and Worth are based on true stories about lawyers fighting for plaintiffs who have suffered horrible losses. Worth, the new film from Sara Colangelo, is certainly within her wheelhouse of dramas about grief. She previously directed Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Kindergarten Teacher and Elizabeth Banks in Little Accidents. Her latest for Netflix takes
A waaay out of the ordinary thriller. But you have to wait for it. First comes a set-up far too long, with old-men stories that have little interest for most of us. Terrance (Bernthal), Packie (Whigham), and Frank (Pollono) are friends from childhood. They bonded together during a horrific event early on, and since then, they have a special
Categorized as a “spiritual sequel” to the ‘90s-era horror franchise, Oscar winner Jordan Peele (“Get Out,” “Us”) puts his unique spin on this reboot that combines the old and new. Director Nia DaCosta (“Little Woods”) follows in Peele’s creative footsteps of shying away from the usual horror movie tropes and figuring out her own way
In the art world, provenance is of great importance in establishing the authenticity of a work. In the case of art created in the 16th Century, investigators may spend years tracing the ownership of a painting, for instance. My guess is that most people would not find that an interesting pursuit, but for museums, art dealers, investigative journalists,
New horror thriller “The Night House” gets much right in the first two acts. The film’s use of location in upstate New York is beautifully isolated, the color palette of natural earth tones seen throughout the film demonstrates its attention to aesthetics. The selling point is underrated actress Rebecca Hall, who should have gotten Oscar
There is a clever premise to this action thriller: It’s about “finding things that don’t want to be found.” Little references to this pop up throughout the story, always in different contexts, a testament to the skillful work of director Martin Campbell and writer Richard Wenk. The story begins a little murky, jumping around from Viet Nam, Bucharest,
Respect shows a cross-section of Aretha Franklin’s life from her childhood up through the first several of her many successes (1972 album Amazing Grace). It makes good use of flashbacks to fill out the early stories, showing the kind of background from which Aretha came and the strong influence of her father throughout her life. His influence even extends
Filmmaker Pablo Larraín has garnered a reputation for his particular use of style as seen in Oscar-nominated films “Jackie“ and “A Fantastic Woman.” His prolific nature, releasing on average two movies a year, combined with such an idiosyncratic vision doesn’t always prove a revelation. Case and point, earlier this year his English remake of “Gloria
You might have heard that Amazon’s new film opened the Cannes Film Festival with a five-minute standing ovation. What you also should know is the Cannes audience is made up of international participants whose tastes rarely align with the mainstream. “Annette” might be the first and last high-profile experimental film Amazon Studios sends to Prime