Krasinski's follow-up to his smash-hit sci-fi thriller works like a charm — mostly because it's made up of familiar sequences that worked like a charm in better movies.

Guy Ritchie's latest is a standout surprise in his filmography: It doesn't make violence seem fun. Perhaps I'm damning it with faint praise, but these days it seems like a refreshing change of pace to suggest that men with guns end up miserable even if they hit their marks.

A new feature at Looking Closer — "Sunday Song" — will feature one or two recent releases that are in frequent rotation during my weekday commute jam session. Here are two of my favorite 2021 songs so far, from Jon Batiste and Allison Russell.

Here's one from the dusty basement that might not be more than a reminder that even the greatest actors sometimes sign on to forgettable projects.

I'm not making a priority of seeing A Quiet Place Part II. You're invited to try to change my mind.

Posted at Looking Closer for the first time, here is Overstreet's 2016 reflection on Tom McCarthy's The Station Agent.

This week, I found myself enjoying — to some extent — an unexpected reunion with a mid-'90s hit that I never got around to reviewing. So here's a look back at a film that is now more than a quarter-of-a-century old.

This documentary glimpse of a disappearing world — where fortune hunters and their dogs explore and dig for pungent, savory gold — is worth a look, but it also feels like a missed opportunity for poetry and transcendence.

Behold — the invention of the "non-rom-com": a genre for stories about loving-but-platonic relationships between men and women!

Christopher Nolan's movie was meant to restore our enthusiasm for big-screen cinema. So why do I think it's best watched on a laptop?

Lee Isaac Chung's strangest film isn't easy to watch. Nor is it easy to forget. But it is well worth seeking out for its cautionary tale of a compromising love affair, mystical visitors from "up there," and the dangers of self-isolation.

In June of 2009, I met Lee Isaac Chung for the first time. We talked about his first feature film Munyurangabo. Nine summers later, I sat down with Chung to talk again — this time about his unpredictable and surprising journeys since then. The recording of that interview is now available for you thanks to Image.

I stared writing about the films of Lee Isaac Chung more than a decade ago. Now that Minari is finally earning him the attention he has long deserved, it would be interesting to revisit those conversations and reviews. Here are the reviews. The conversations are coming tomorrow.

Minari director Lee Isaac Chung has a new essay in the L.A. Times. Have you been reading Looking Closer for the decade that has passed since he shared an essay with us? Here it is again: "Retrospectives."

Compelling, occasionally impressive in its cinematographic finesse, occasionally obvious in its allusions, often too familiar in its form, eventually painful in its truth-telling, this flashy new film is, ultimately, a necessary testimony.