While watching Downsizing, I was struck with the memory of a directors roundtable in 2011, which included Steve McQueen and Downsizing‘s director Alexander Payne, amongst several others. The roundtable was noted for McQueen being asked about unequalRead Full Review

If Spotlight winning Best Picture brought back The Newspaper Movie, it did so in more of a nostalgic way. We watch newspaper films in the same way that we watch a Jane Austen adaptation. They’re moreRead Full Review

The merging of Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Thomas Anderson felt prophetic when it happened ten years ago – with the masterful There Will Be Blood – and together they made one of the most influential American filmsRead Full Review

Let’s start off with what works: Margot Robbie and Allison Janney are both superb. Robbie, the Australian beauty strips down her looks to play rough-around-the-edges figure skater Tonya Harding. Janney, a seasoned veteran in anyRead Full Review

I can’t think of another filmmaker who has been given as much creative control over a Star Wars film as Rian Johnson was just given. Other than George Lucas, no other person has had solo writingRead Full Review

Woody Allen has been short on things to say for a while now. Even his hits, like Blue Jasmine, are recycled territory buoyed by a great lead performance. This is about where Wonder Wheel resides, a bloatedRead Full Review

The way in which Guillermo del Toro views his cinematic worlds is always fascinating, always captivating, even in movies as flat as Pacific Rim and Crimson Peak. It really is up to del Toro and his capacityRead Full Review

I can’t speak to the artistic competence of Tommy Wiseau. I’ve never seen The Room and frankly, I don’t plan to. As for James Franco, I’d say that as a director he’s done very little toRead Full Review

Loveless is the kind of feel-bad drama that gives you no release. It focuses on a crumbling marriage that is in such bad shape that not even the well-being of their twelve-year-old son can bringRead Full Review

The pairing of James Ivory and Luca Guadagnino is not one I would have thought of myself. The two storytellers examine passion in such different ways. Guadagnino loves to mix in eroticism, he has a keenRead Full Review

Pixar is a genre onto itself, separate even from the rest of Disney’s animation enterprise. Their scripts are structural masterpieces, attune to the souls of children and adults alike. They’re the most consistently successful HollywoodRead Full Review

The mental landscape of Joachim Trier’s characters is frightful. Often they’re circumstances lead them into a depression. Medication, whether self-inflicted or otherwise, is a resort many of his characters take to. In Thelma, a young girl playedRead Full Review

At one point, near the middle of Sebastián Lelio’s latest film, A Fantastic Woman, the film’s main character, Marina Vidal, is referred to, pejoratively, as a chimera. She does not react to the odd specificity ofRead Full Review

Richard Linklater’s Last Flag Flying is about as good a movie can be with the acting talent it has. The film is based on a novel by Darryl Ponicsan (who co-wrote the script with Linklater) whichRead Full Review

The burden of Martin McDonagh’s new opus, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, falls on the audience, as is usually the case when the famed Irish filmmaker is involved. His plays and films are rife with traumaRead Full Review

Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird has the kind of flaws that most first features have (this is Gerwig’s first solo directing credit). It tends to be representative of its titular protagonist, Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson – strong-willed,Read Full Review

The Marvel Universe has moved past self-consciousness and gone straight to parody. Five years ago, this version of Thor: Ragnarok would have been called “Phor: I’m a rock” and it would have been produced and directedRead Full Review

The kind of satire that Ruben Östlund is doing with his 2014 film Force Majeure and his newest film, The Square, strikes right at the heart of contemporary society. Force Majeure dissected the state of the standard binary family in aRead Full Review

Against my better judgment, I seem to always think Yorgos Lanthimos’ films are excellent. He’s incredibly meticulous in his dissections of human behavior. He seems completely infatuated with the seemingly casual cruelties that human beingsRead Full Review

To make a film as atypical as Wonderstruck just two years after making a film as masterful as Carol is, for director Todd Haynes, quite the cinematic stunt that isn’t getting that much attention. Haynes is aRead Full Review

Let’s start with the obvious: we’ve never actually needed a sequel to Blade Runner. Ridley Scott’s 1982 film is a moody noir that found its audience over time and after several different cuts. That movie hasRead Full Review

There’s always been a bit of amalgamation in Noah Baumbach’s work. At any point, his films can mimic the style Woody Allen or Francois Truffaut, his scripts could have the wry sense of humor of hisRead Full Review

Many artists claim to want to speak toward the common people, to display the struggle of our lower classes, to make a case against our rigged socioeconomic structure. Few filmmakers walk the walk the sameRead Full Review

John Carroll Lynch’s Lucky feels at times like a short film that’s running a bit too long. There isn’t much to the story. It stars Harry Dean Stanton as the titular Lucky, a 90-year-old atheist andRead Full Review

English film director Stephen Frears is one of the most dependable filmmakers in the world. In the 80’s and 90’s he made slick, provocative films like My Beautiful Laundrette, Dangerous Liasons and The Grifters. In the early 2000’s,Read Full Review

Outside of New York and Los Angeles, Hollywood films love no American city more than Boston. The New England area seems to show up a lot around Fall Movie Season, a favored symbol of American nobilityRead Full Review

The 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs is one of the most fascinating social occurrences in American history. A middle-aged retired tennis pro (Riggs) claims in strategically arrogant fashion that he could beatRead Full Review

Movie stars like Jennifer Lawrence don’t usually make films like Mother! and by that fact alone, this film is unique and interesting in a way. The movie came out on September 15th and in less thanRead Full Review

With back-to-back screenwriting successes like Sicario and Hell or High Water, it’s no wonder Taylor Sheridan would finally get a shot at directing one of his own screenplays. Wind River, his directorial debut, is a disappointing return onRead Full Review

Ingrid Goes West is a mental health melodrama cloaked as a social media satire. The film is such a treat because it functions well as both. As we’ve finally found a way to make ourRead Full Review

Good Time is an incredibly well-directed film, made by two directors that have a frighteningly strong grasp of the tone and effect of the story they’re trying to tell. A lot of this is the kindRead Full Review

Michael Winterbottom’s third serving of The Trip is more of the same, which is to say it is an absolutely delightful film, filled with hilarious riffs by its two stars, Steve Coogan and Rob Bryden. TheirRead Full Review

It’s important to note that screenwriter Mark Boal was unable to acquire the rights to John Hersey’s book “The Algiers Motel Incident”, and based his screenplay for Detroit on his own research – interviews and first-personRead Full Review

Girls Trip is aiming at a target so small, and so far away, that it’s a miracle that it is able to hit that target with such precision and grace. The film tries and succeedsRead Full Review