Ghostlight celebrates the healing power of community theater
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
October 23, 2024
Kelly O'Sullivan's film about grief, reconciliation, and community theater deserves major acting awards.
0 Comments14 Minutes
Inside Out 2 gives us all some strong anti-anxiety treatment
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
October 20, 2024
While it doesn't quite reach the heights of Pixar's golden-age masterpieces, we can be grateful for the wisdom and whimsy of this surprising sequel.
0 Comments17 Minutes
Hit Man hits and hits… but misses when it matters most
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
September 6, 2024
Linklater's smart, good-humored comedy looks ready to launch a fantastic franchise starring Glen Powell... and then fumbles the ball and loses the game just when it seemed like a sure win.
0 Comments8 Minutes
Civil War — It’s not about picking a side
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
September 1, 2024
Some of my favorite critics have serious issues with Alex Garland's speculative fiction about a near-future collapse of democracy in the U.S. And I just don't get it.
0 Comments1 Minutes
Still recovering from an evening with Hundreds of Beavers
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
August 31, 2024
The most original movie I've seen in years is also the most outrageous comedy I've seen in years. It's an endurance test for your brain, body, and sense of humor. Brace yourselves. And dress warmly.
0 Comments14 Minutes
Unworthy of Gosling or Blunt, Fall Guy’s screenplay falls short of my summer movie standards
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
August 18, 2024
If this is your idea of a satisfying summertime movie, well... knock yourself out. Me? Life's too short, and there are just so many better ways for me to spend my summer.
0 Comments9 Minutes
Love triangle aside — what is Challengers really about?
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
August 4, 2024
Despite its tangled web (net?) of bad behavior, Luca Guadagnino's smash hit gets a lot right about the transcendence artists pursue and sometimes reach.
0 Comments14 Minutes
Low-budget, high imagination: Riddle of Fire may someday be an all-ages cult classic
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
July 22, 2024
This retro adventure—which sends kids questing for an egg that'll help them bake a pie and save a sleeping beauty—will puzzle many moviegoers and win the hearts of a special few. I'm one of the few.
0 Comments15 Minutes
Playful, nightmarish, fantastical, political: Problemista is all over the place
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
July 3, 2024
Julio Torres's leap from television's Los Espookys to the big screen has some remarkable highlights... and some complicated challenges.
0 Comments16 Minutes
Cabrini celebrates a true Christian vision of embracing immigrants and opposing cruelty
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
July 2, 2024
Angel Studios' new film celebrates a woman who helped America practice what it preaches about welcoming immigrants and serving the poor. And this time, the studio gets it mostly right.
0 Comments15 Minutes
Love Lies Bleeding “hulks out” with surreal surprises
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
June 10, 2024
This wild, weird, violent, genre-dodging thriller from Rose Glass suggests we're seeing a B-movie auteur on the rise.
0 Comments16 Minutes
The spirit of ’80s Tim Burton is alive in Lisa Frankenstein
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
May 26, 2024
This Halloween-y rom-com is an '80s cosplay party that should scratch itches for Tim Burton fans and those who thrilled to the audacity of Heathers.
0 Comments9 Minutes
Adam Driver plays a driver — again! — in Michael Mann’s Ferrari
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
May 19, 2024
Michael Mann's passion project has finally arrived. Is it a victory lap for the master? Or does it crash and burn?
0 Comments13 Minutes
Teyana Taylor deserved an Oscar nomination for A Thousand and One
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
May 11, 2024
When I reviewed this film, I predicted that Teyana Taylor would be unjustly overlooked for an Oscar nomination. I was right. But we still have the movie and her outstanding performance.
0 Comments7 Minutes
Kore-eda’s Monster keeps us guessing
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
April 4, 2024
The prolific director Hirozaku Kore-eda's latest is a complex braid of stories about secrets that seem too scary to reveal.
0 Comments13 Minutes
It’s allergy season, and I’m allergic to Godzilla
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
April 4, 2024
You'll think about Japanese wartime and post-war history. You'll find a focus on redemption and grace. You'll cheer for great special effects. And if you're luckier than me, it might become your favorite Godzilla movie.
0 Comments10 Minutes
Haynes hits a tense, hilarious high with May December
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
March 22, 2024
Just as Todd Haynes's new film keeps us guessing about Julianne Moore's deceptive ex-con and Natalie Portman's scheming method actor, it keeps us guessing what kind of movie it really means to be.
0 Comments18 Minutes
The great Nicolas Cage shows up for Dream Scenario, but is the movie worthy of him?
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
March 8, 2024
No, Nicolas Cage is not "funnier than he's ever been." But he's really funny. And while everyone complains about the lackluster ending, let me praise what it does so well.
0 Comments27 Minutes
The Holdovers lives up to its name
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
March 7, 2024
Alexander Payne's latest has its highlights, even if it holds us a little too long, and strains a little too hard for a crowd-pleasing conclusion.
0 Comments11 Minutes
Beauty and the rock’n’roll beast: Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
March 7, 2024
A double-feature of Priscilla and Spencer might be a fascinating study. Or it might seem merely redundant.
0 Comments23 Minutes
Misgivings about “a masterpiece”: Killers of the Flower Moon
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
January 26, 2024
Scorsese's new epic features some of the strongest and most conscientious work of his career. But the fact I'm opening with words about him here hints at what gives me mixed feelings about the film.
0 Comments38 Minutes
Three Colors: Blue at 30
On Movies & Media,On Books & Writing,Journal
January 1, 2024
My 10,000-word deep-dive on Kieslowski's masterpiece is published in a new anthology.
0 Comments5 Minutes
Bottoms (2023)
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
December 2, 2023
Here's a high school comedy about hormones and hijinks that goes to violent extremes, afflicting the comfortable and making the uncomfortable laugh until they're sick.
0 Comments27 Minutes
The Unknown Country (2023)
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
November 5, 2023
You're probably hearing a lot about Lily Gladstone's performance in Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon. In fact, she was just as magnetic earlier this year in The Unknown Country, a film worth seeking out on streaming services, and one of my favorites of 2023.
0 Comments10 Minutes
Barbie, Pt. 3: My full review!
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
October 29, 2023
My three-part series on Greta Gerwig's Barbie culminates with my full review.
0 Comments1 Minute
Killers of My Substack Journal: New films by Scorsese and Fincher
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
October 29, 2023
In a season of intensifying violence — in American neighborhoods, and in battlefields of global significance — some of our best filmmakers are telling stories about gun-wielding villains. I've just published thoughts on The Killer and Killers of the Flower Moon.
0 Comments2 Minutes
Barbie, Pt. 2: Action figures, their accessories, and me
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
October 29, 2023
In Part Two of my Barbie coverage, I establish some necessary context for my upcoming film review. My history with toy trends is a story of formative influences: Barbies for girls, armed men for boys.
0 Comments17 Minutes
Barbie, Pt. 1: While frightened men burn dolls, Christian women rave about Barbie’s wisdom
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
October 15, 2023
Greta Gerwig's brilliant blockbuster gets us laughing at the absurdity of real-world hierarchies (including injustices often reinforced in Christian circles to the harm of everyone involved).
0 Comments12 Minutes
Was Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer inspired by Raiders of the Lost Ark?
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
September 15, 2023
Christopher Nolan seems to be remaking Steven Spielberg's "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in this profound meditation on America's self-righteous obsession with coercive violence and apocalyptic firepower.
0 Comments6 Minutes
A scorecard for Star Wars: Visions — Season 2
September 15, 2023
A quick review of my personal Star Wars history and notes on this new animated series, which has a few delightful surprises... and a whole lot of storytelling that might've been ChatGPT'd.
0 Comments23 Minutes
Showing Up (2023)
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
August 16, 2023
Kelly Reichardt's latest depicts the day-to-day challenges of artmaking with such truthfulness that artists may find it almost too familiar.
1 Comment9 Minutes
Peter Pan and Wendy (2023)
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
July 27, 2023
David Lowery's "Peter Pan and Wendy" gives us a glimpse of the unconventionally meditative and innovative adaptation that might have been. But what it actually is? That might well be the result of studio interference, judging from these strangely incoherent results.
0 Comments14 Minutes
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. (2023)
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
July 23, 2023
Most people missed the long-awaited adaptation of "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret." in the theater. That's a shame, as it's one of 2023's most enjoyable films so far.
0 Comments15 Minutes
They Cloned Tyrone (2023)
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
July 18, 2023
The new Netflix sci-fi comedy features John Boyega and Jamie Foxx in their best performances in years.
0 Comments2 Minutes
Rye Lane (2023)
On Movies & Media,Film Reviews
July 18, 2023
This rom-com from newcomer Raine Allen Miller just might be the meet-cutest film of the year.
0 Comments13 Minutes
Looking Closer with Jeffrey Overstreet
(now the ears of my ears awake andnow the eyes of my eyes are opened)
– e. e. cummings, “i thank You God for most this amazing”