Where does art end and reality begin? It's a pretentious question, but a pertinent one that merits exploration. It's also one of the many questions that Josephine Decker's sublime film tackles. The focus of Madeline's Madeline is more experiential than narrative. It's nominally about a troubled teen, Madeline (played astonishingly by Helena Howard), and her … Continue reading Madeline’s Madeline (Review)
Category: Films
The Raft (Review)
In 1973, an anthropologist (Santiago Genovés) loaded a specially made raft with ten other people and sailed across the Atlantic. This documentary tells that story through a mixture of archive footage and contemporary interviews with the surviving crew. Overall, it's an interesting story worth telling but the film itself provides little insight. Its linear approach … Continue reading The Raft (Review)
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (Review)
Somethings shouldn't be brought back. This is an argument put forward by several characters in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, as the plot (for want of a better word) revolves around an attempt to bring back ancient monsters in order to restore balance to the planet. The film's narrative has its own conclusions about this, … Continue reading Godzilla: King of the Monsters (Review)
Rocketman (Review)
From the first shot, Rocketman establishes itself as strange: a flamboyantly costumed Elton John (Taron Egerton) walks down a nondescript hallway to a meeting in rehab. This is our framing device for the biopic, as Elton looks back on what brought him to this point. The result is extremely entertaining, often emotional and sometimes really … Continue reading Rocketman (Review)
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (Review)
The premise is simple: everybody is after John Wick. Events at the end of Chapter 2 have left John (Keanu Reeves) exiled from the assassin's underworld and have placed a multi-million dollar bounty on his head. It's John Wick versus the world, and that's a pretty good set-up for a John Wick movie. For the … Continue reading John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (Review)
Pokemon: Detective Pikachu (Review)
If you have spent any time outside of a cave in the last twenty-three years, you'll be at least passingly familiar with Pokemon - and its adorable poster-child, Pikachu. Detective Pikachu certainly takes this familiarity for granted but is accessible enough to appeal to the uninitiated - or uninterested. It's a film stuffed with referential … Continue reading Pokemon: Detective Pikachu (Review)
Eighth Grade (Review)
The portrayal of a social media obsessed generation is hardly new to cinema but few - if any - films have portrayed today's teenagers with as much empathy, understanding and sympathy as Eighth Grade. Writer/director Bo Burnam's debut feature is a note perfect evocation of a generation, in which a mastery of specificity allows the … Continue reading Eighth Grade (Review)
Pet Semetary (Review)
The latest Stephen King adaptation presents the idea that some things should be left alone. The line 'sometimes dead is better' became a tagline - and is sadly apropos when describing the film. Maybe this property didn't need to be brought back to life. Maybe dead was better. The plot of Pet Semetary revolves around … Continue reading Pet Semetary (Review)
The Old Man and the Gun (Review)
I firmly believe that David Lowery’s A Ghost Story is one of the century’s best films. Yes, it made the mistake of including, known creep, Casey Affleck but it at least had the good sense to keep him completely obscured with a sheet for the vast majority of the film. Lowery’s most recent outing, The … Continue reading The Old Man and the Gun (Review)
Under the Silver Lake (Review)
Under the Silver Lake navigates many thin lines, including the gap between profundity and idiocy; satire and glorification; quirky and irritating; insight and cliché; revealing sexism and being sexist; and genre deconstruction and empty pastiche. Unfortunately, UtSL is on the wrong side of all of these and firmly proves that the line between love and … Continue reading Under the Silver Lake (Review)
Assorted Opinions 