Film-Forward

Road Trip

Green Book

If this film works at all, it’s because of Mahershala Ali.

The Last Movie Star

Burt Reynolds stars as Vic Edwards, a very Burt Reynolds–like aging movie star who has fallen hard and fast from the top of the box office.

The Leisure Seeker

Donald Sutherland plays an academic with Alzheimer’s, and Helen Mirren is his dotty wife.

American Honey

Rising British director Andrea Arnold makes her first onscreen journey through the States

Overlooked Gems of 2015

Early on in the year may be as good a time as any to look back at 2015, before the number of films begins to snowball and as the awards season slowly winds down. What has been overlooked? What made the festival rounds but is conspicuously missing from this year’s lineup, having perhaps gotten lost […]

Anomalisa

It’s tough to digest a film written by Charlie Kaufman right after you have seen it. Even the more accessible ones are enigmatic: Being John Malkovich (involving a portal into actor John Malkovich’s mind) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where Jim Carrey erases all memories, literally, of his relationship with Kate Winslet after […]

Entertainment

Entertainment is one odd film. Possibly the weirdest I’ve seen in quite a while. If you can imagine the Coen Brothers’ deadpan stare, Sam Shepard’s white trash western goth aesthetic, and David Lynch’s dream-fuck phantasmagoria skillfully mulled together, you have an idea. Still, you will be shaking your head in disbelief at what you have […]

Funny Bunny

Before Quentin Tarantino set the world afire with blazing guns in Reservoir Dogs, indie films were dominated by character studies of quirky people who did not quite fit in. There tended to be a sense of irony and distance that deepened rather than lessened your emotional experience. Hal Hartley was the prince of that realm […]

This Is Happening

Oh, Little Miss Sunshine, what hast thou wrought? Due to one adorably off-color indie film, we are subjected to quirky dysfunctional families bickering their way across the land in an effort to a) save their family home b) win an absurd competition or c) in the case of the terminally dull This Is Happening, retrieve […]