Cinema

​Okuno Watches the ‘Watcher’ in Strong Debut

May 30th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

In Chloe Okuno’s feature debut “Watcher,” which premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition during the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, a frightening serial killer called the Spider haunts and stalks the neighborhoods of Bucharest.

Maika Monroe’s aspiring actress Julia has unwittingly chosen this inopportune moment to relocate to Romania with her husband Francis (Karl Glusman), who has taken a new job to advance his career. While paying direct…

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​Garland’s Beastly ‘Men’

May 23rd, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Novelist/screenwriter/director Alex Garland has earned a sizable and devoted following over the years. His previous two feature directorial efforts, “Ex Machina” and “Annihilation,” shimmered with retro-futurist cool and pop philosophical preoccupations enhanced by the presence of appealing performers, dazzling production design, and the sharp cinematography of Rob Hardy.

“Men,” Garland’s latest, will draw the filmmaker’s faithful,…

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​Mariama Diallo’s ‘Master’ Calls Out the Horrors of Racism

May 18th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Writer-director Mariama Diallo’s satirical short “Hair Wolf” attracted attention at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, earning a jury award for its funny/scary social commentary. Diallo returned to the festival in 2022 with debut feature “Master,” a promising extension of her interests in the contemporary politics and historical hegemony of insidious, institutionalized white supremacy. “Master” drops the humor of “Hair Wolf” but…

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​Poehler’s ‘Lucy and Desi’ Looks at the Love and Work of Hollywood Icons

May 8th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Photo credit: Amazon Studios

Amy Poehler’s nonfiction feature debut as director is a solid and informative account of the inextricably linked personal and professional lives of two visionary entertainers and broadcasting pioneers. The title “Lucy and Desi” doesn’t require the last names Ball and Arnaz for viewers to instantly identify the powerful pair (or to guess why Poehler would be drawn to the story). They are still household names,…

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​Rory Kennedy’s Lacerating ‘Downfall: The Case Against Boeing’

May 1st, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmial.com

Speaking Truth to Power and Profit

Filmmaker Rory Kennedy lays out damning evidence in “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing,” which premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and is now available to stream on Netflix. Kennedy’s sobering, infuriating film is peak advocacy storytelling, a focused takedown equally interested in the human cost of corporate greed and the chain of bad decisions that led to a pair of preventable crashes. Air travel has…

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​‘Hatching’: Bergholm’s Fledgling Feature Takes Flight

April 25th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Finnish filmmaker Hanna Bergholm’s feature debut “Hatching” is a satisfying creature-feature delight. A coming-of-age, body horror nightmare with a sharp sense of social critique and a nose for the adolescent challenges of complicated mother-daughter relationships, Bergholm’s film critiques the contemporary obsession with self-centered personal branding and the pursuit of clicks, likes, and followers. Better yet, Bergholm commits to the…

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​Eggers Goes Berserk With Viking Tale ‘The Northman’

April 21st, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

Robert Eggers’s friend Robert Pattinson tries out “I’m vengeance” as the Batman’s latest cinematic catchphrase. In “The Northman,” Alexander Skarsgård’s Prince Amleth takes it up a few notches, preparing himself in the style of Beatrix Kiddo and Maximus Decimus Meridius for a roaring rampage of bloody, gladiatorial revenge on his nasty uncle Fjölnir (Claes Bang, whose character is soon enough “Fjölnir the Brotherless”). Loosely…

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​Pinky Push-ups and Weaponized Lapdogs: The Daniels Take a Spin Through the Multiverse

April 10th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

The Daniels – Kwan and Scheinert – further cement their cult status with the hellzapoppin and appropriately titled “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the team’s follow-up to “Swiss Army Man.” That joint theatrical feature debut, the buzziest word-of-mouth must-see at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, remains the finest film ever made about a friendship between a marooned loner and a flatulent corpse. So what do you do for an encore?…

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​The Milk of Kindness: Andrea Arnold’s ‘Cow’

April 3rd, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

“Cow,” Andrea Arnold’s first nonfiction feature, opens theatrically and on-demand in the United States on April 8. The talented writer-director, whose “Red Road,” “Fish Tank,” and “American Honey” received jury prizes at Cannes, spent more than four years working on the project.

The result of the filmmaker’s labor is as beautiful as it is painful. “Cow” is a stirring, contemplative, and observational examination of the life of…

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​Bermúdez Peels ‘A Forbidden Orange’

March 27th, 2022

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmial.com

Abiding enthusiasm for continued discussion of the life and work of Stanley Kubrick manifests once again in feature-length documentary “A Forbidden Orange” (also known by its original Spanish title “La naranja prohibida”). Delving into the exhibition history of “A Clockwork Orange” in Spain, director Pedro González Bermúdez shines his flashlight into all kinds of nooks and crannies, but the movie – now available to watch in the United…

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