Childrearing is tough. We’ve seen plenty of films about it. Stories about conception, though, are less common—especially ones about couples struggling like no tomorrow for a family that may never materialize. Tamara Jenkins takes it […]
Song to Song (Malick, 2017)
Who knows if Terrence Malick will ever reach his early career heights again. The Tree of Life might be his final “great” work, though his recent efforts may be re-evaluated down the line. Song to Song, like its […]
The Disaster Artist (Franco, 2017)
I’m so glad I watched The Room before seeing this. The experience is ten times more riotous when you’re familiar with Tommy Wiseau’s peculiar tics and see them so brilliantly imitated by James Franco (in, without a […]
The Greatest Showman (Gracey, 2017)
I might have enjoyed a different version of The Greatest Showman. One where the filmmaking was more adept, the songs more substantial, and the characters given the complexity they deserve. This? This is pap. Well-intentioned pap, […]
After the Storm (Kore-eda, 2016)
With After the Storm, I can now say that I’m no longer a Kore-eda virgin. I don’t know why it’s taken this long for me to watch one of his films, because if this one is […]
Nocturama (Bonello, 2016)
I could ding Nocturama for being on the nose in its second half, when it gathers its group of youthful terrorists within the confines of an expensive shopping mall and has them ogle over all the brand […]
World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts (Hertzfeldt, 2017)
Maybe we didn’t need a sequel to the perfect World of Tomorrow, and I would’ve been happy without one. Nevertheless, Don Hertzfeldt gave us a sequel after recording his niece Winona Mae a year after her […]
Menashe (Weinstein, 2017)
It’s not often we get films about the Hasidic Jewish community, so in that respect, it’s nice to see something like Menashe making the rounds. Spoken almost entirely in Yiddish, the film follows the life of the […]
Pitch Perfect 3 (Sie, 2017)
Due to a timing mix-up, I saw Pitch Perfect 3 in a very last-minute call. It was only until I was seated that I remembered I hadn’t seen the second installment! Most mercifully, the story is more […]
Brawl in Cell Block 99 (Zahler, 2017)
Within the first ten minutes or so of Brawl in Cell Block 99, Bradley Thomas (Vince Vaughn) angrily dismantles his wife’s car after learning of her infidelity. Nearly two hours later, the guy drags a baddie […]
Lucky (Lynch, 2017)
Lucky is one big, warm farewell to Harry Dean Stanton, a man who didn’t hug the spotlight or seek out starring roles, but who made even the smallest parts count. What looks to be his penultimate […]
Staying Vertical (Guiraudie, 2016)
The largely aimless countryside jaunt that is Staying Vertical is saved from the scrapheap purely because of its intoxicating absurdism. It takes itself seriously and no one in the film laughs, but I would classify it as […]
The Work (McLeary & Aldous, 2017)
Therapy can be intense. Intensive group therapy? Man. I don’t know how else to compare such extreme cathartic intervention other than as a form of non-supernatural exorcism. It must take mountains of courage for grown […]
Phantom Thread (Anderson, 2017)
Many things can be said about Paul Thomas Anderson’s ravishing masterpiece Phantom Thread. That it’s a sterling period piece that evokes both the opulence of Ophüls and the twisted sensibility of Hitchcock is a given. That […]
Graduation (Mungiu, 2016)
It’s nice to see Cristian Mungiu channeling his inner Asghar Farhadi, spinning some of the Iranian’s moral fibers into the Romanian New Wave. It’s always been a fruitful method of critiquing one’s society, and Mungiu […]
The Lonely Film Critic 