Every year when we get to this point there’s a mixture of dread and excitement concerning the compiling of this list [and I’m sure my fellow editors would agree]. On the one hand, it’s a chance to celebrate the years…
Welcome to Marwen Movie Review: An embarrassing disaster all around
Who was the Hollywood screenwriter, producer, or bigwig who saw Jeff Malmberg’s Marwencol (2010)—a bruising, heart-breaking film about trauma —and thought yes, this will make a perfect dramedic fantasy crowd-pleaser. It boggles the mind and the reasoning bits of the…
The Mule Movie Review: Clint Eastwood Stumbles Again
Once the proud pillar of American cinematic masculinity, nowadays Clint Eastwood is the Hollywood embodiment of the “old man yells at cloud” meme (or chair, in his case). At 88-years-old, he’s directed seven movies in the last decade and even…
Capernaum Movie Review: A flawed but essential portrait of childhood poverty
Capernaum is about two hours of near unrelenting bleakness, but it’s the kind of bleakness that’s also a mostly intelligent indictment of just how we all let it come to this. The opening scene is hard enough, as we see…
Tyrel Movie Review: A genre bending examination of bro culture
The precise genre categorization of Sebastián Silva’s Tyrel is difficult to pin down in concrete terms, namely because it is based entirely on the specific cultural baggage each individual viewer brings to the film. For many, it’s a horror movie;…
Mortal Engines Movie Review: Beautiful visuals can only distract from a convoluted story for so long
The world has been forever broken after an apocalyptic event: cities uprooted and placed on wheels to traverse what remains while trying to be the dominant force and survive. Hugo Weaving is a villain (again) bent on conquering whatever gets…
Album Review: The 1975 – “A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships”
Whenever one talks about The 1975, it comes with a slight turn of the head and a sharp side-eye. As they wisely pointed out in the video for “The Sound,” people have a hard time determining whether or not to…