The Ritual Movie Review: A visually beautiful yet average horror experience

What happens when you take The Blair Witch but remove the found footage and self-awareness? You end up with The Ritual, a creepy horror flick set in the dark forests of Sweden. You still get the hair-raising and thought-provoking elements…

The 15:17 to Paris Review: Clint Eastwood misfires with this bundle of ideological confusion

Three young boys play with airsoft guns in the woods, each blasting the other with tiny plastic pellets from the muzzles of toys made to look like real weapons. The three charge at each other and collapse into a pile…

Golden Exits Movie Review: A new face shakes up the status quo

In this decidedly unmelodious yet resoundingly affectionate Brooklyn saga, a network of family and familiars become severed to near irreparability with the appearance of a new face in their personal and work space. Channeling Cassavetes (à la Faces and Husbands),…

Alone Together 1×05 Review: “Dean Girls”

Alone Together’s fifth episode, “Dean Girls,” harkens back to the pilot in a couple of ways. First, it features another plot that finds Esther and Benji’s actions and goals overlapping with each other and second, it brings back Benji’s older…

Fresh Off the Boat 4×16 Review: “Ride the Tiger”

Mandarin is the name of the game this week on Fresh Off the Boat and there can only be one winner! Jessica and Evan played an intense game of “who can speak Mandarin the longest?” The best part about the game…

The Insult Movie Review

Writer and director Ziad Doueiri has never been shy in tackling political, religious, and social issues that are too often deemed controversial in the Middle East. The Insult (titled Case Number 23 in Arabic), co-written by Doueiri and his writing partner Joelle Touma, is…

Permission Movie Review: A welcome twist on a familiar story

Before we’re educated enough to even spell “tequila,” we’re told that alcohol is generally an Off-Limits, Grown-Up Thing reserved for special occasions, like weddings, the New Year’s Eve ball drop, or the post-divorce papers signing party your mercurial and slightly…