A Silent Voice Review – Bullying and Redemption

Kids are cruel, and there is no shortage of depictions of this cruelty in the world of film. The annals of cinema is littered with bullying heels, and under-aged villains who ridicule the protagonist for their perceived differences. Whether it's this year’s realist Eighth Grade, the bountiful Hughes-esque teen-comedies of the 80s, or the hyperbolic …

Eighth Grade Review- Social Anxiety Personified

While most movies seek to embellish reality through constant dramatic flourishes, sometimes slavishly building on the lineage of their chosen genre, there is a smaller subset of films that challenge the typical characteristics of the type of story they’re telling. Bo Burnham’s directotial debut, Eighth Grade, is a coming of age story. While this is …

Mission Impossible: Fallout Review – Coherent Bombast

The common understanding about how movie sequels progress is that in the best case scenario, there is a gradual case of diminishing returns. For whatever reason, the Mission Impossible series seems to be reversing that expectation, each sequel piling on increasingly creative and outrageously entertaining set-pieces. Mission Impossible: Fallout is arguably the highlight of the …

Ant Man and the Wasp Review

In the wake of Infinity War the MCU sits in a limbo phase, the universe in a dismal state. Ant Man and the Wasp serves as a sort of palate cleanser for that traumatic turn of events, adjusting the stakes from a battle for the fate of all life forms, to a smaller scale story …

Hereditary Review: There’s No Escape From Your Lineage

Ari Aster’s directorial debut begins with the spitting image of Kubrikian precision, a methodical camera push where we inch ever closer to a meticulously crafted home in miniature. As the camera creeps forward into a single room of this diorama, the scene seamlessly blends into the actual home of the Graham family, revealing the bedroom …

Solo: A Star Wars Story Review – The Epitome of Average

It’s no secret that Solo went through a somewhat disastrous production process, much beloved directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord sacked for “creative differences”. This heavy handed management of the brand, combined with a limiting premise, seemed to doom Solo from the start. The good news is that the result isn’t nearly as much of …

Tully Review: Just In Time for Mother’s Day

One of the best things about smaller scale filmmaking is that it allows for points of view that simply don’t make it into larger films. Although the perception of what is actually “marketable” is changing due to a string of upset box office performances, Hollywood is still very much stuck in its ways. The dramedy …

Avengers Infinity War Review: The End is Nigh

It’s been ten years since the start of this cinematic experiment, a test to see if a tapestry of blockbuster superhero movies could be successfully woven into a single satisfying film franchise. There have been highs (Iron Man, Winter Soldier, Civil War, Black Panther), and there have been lows (Thor 1&2, Captain America 1, Age …

A Quiet Place Review: Horror Distilled

There is something particularly satisfying about a lean genre film that knows exactly what it wants to be, and nails that mission statement. Actor turned director John Krasinski's post-apocalyptic thriller A Quiet Place is storytelling distilled into pure tension. It wisely abides by Hitchcock’s old adage about the nature of cinematic suspense. Taking place in …

Ready Player One Review: Nerd References Galore

Ready Player One defied my expectations, but not entirely in a good way. I went in assuming that the self-indulgent reference-palooza would be tempered by Spielberg’s mastery of the popcorn flick. The man defined the modern blockbuster movie after all, and his prolific career has been marked by his consistent ability to bring drama and …