Suzume Iwato is an ordinary 17-year-old living on the island of Kyushu in southwestern Japan. She lost her mother over a decade ago and has been raised by a supportive aunt, but questions linger about exactly what happened when she was young. On her bike to school, she runs into a stranger who tells her … Read more
The wine incident is just the first of many stunts both Thomas and Signe will pull to draw attention from one another: exaggerating one’s role in an emergency, a faked allergy, an exhibition of repurposed stolen art, a self-aggrandizing magazine interview, developing an addiction to a Russian drug that causes a devastating skin condition, other … Read more
The film’s writer/director is Ari Aster, who has always been a funny guy. His excellent, trauma-filled dramas “Hereditary” and “Midsommar” may be packed with the horror of relationships, but it’s the cruel joke underneath that provides their driving force–they are pitch-black comedies about the universal fear of losing free-will , of being screwed from the … Read more
“One True Loves” is the tale of Emma (Phillipa Soo), a woman caught in romantic limbo. She’s in line to marry Sam (Simu Liu), her best friend since high school, only to have her world shaken when she discovers that her husband, Jesse (Luke Bracey), who has been presumed dead for the last four years … Read more
Haider at home, we learn, is generally on the ineffectual side. He stays at the claustrophobic house and looks after the cleaning and cooking, his wheelchair-bound father, Abba, and his nieces, while his wife Mumtaz is a makeup artist. Nothing in the family’s world is reliable. The power goes out at a wedding where Mumtaz … Read more
Lizzy’s father (Judd Hirsch) was also a sculptor and he takes an interest in his daughter’s work. However, he’s wrapped up in his own life, with two perpetual visitors, played by Amanda Plummer and Matt Molloy, grifter hippies who never settled down. This duo might have been the lively center of another Reichardt film. Lizzy … Read more
Most of the film’s emphasis, however, is on the family that Jois abandoned, especially Sam, whose sweet smile and open face start to seem more haunted as the tale goes on. Much of the first half is about Reed and Sam embarking on a two-person odyssey to find Jois, playing private detective by diving into … Read more
There’s a big hole in McAdams’ directorial debut where our compassion for Carl should be. Carl is stuck at the beginning of “Paint” and finds himself repeatedly painting the same landmark of Mt. Mansfield (one of many ongoing jokes that would be funnier with better pacing). Such creative stasis makes way for a weak subplot … Read more
“Beef” is the story of two people who feel like they have had to “take the high road” too many times in their lives. They’re done with it. Danny finds Amy first and does something awful in her house. Amy realizes what’s happening and escalates the action by Yelp-bombing his business and then basically catfishing … Read more
With “Air,” it all comes together in an enormously entertaining package—one that’s old-fashioned but also alive and crowd-pleasing. Working from a sharp and snappy script by Alex Convery, Affleck tells the story of how Nike nabbed Jordan by creating a shoe that wasn’t just for him but of him—the representation of his soon-to-be iconic persona … Read more