“If I told you there was an animated film about the origins of the Santa Claus mythology would you picture something treacly and gushy? Granted, nothing involving Christmas can escape heavy sentimentality and requisite story beats, but Klaus counterbalances the sweet with the sour. Of course, the sou” read more
“It would be easy to write off 1917 as a technical display lacking in anything else, but that complaint is rooted in an inability to get past the central gimmick. Sam Mendes’ directorial achievement is from the school of Rope and Birdman: everything is presented as one long shot. Unlike those films” read more
“The Irishman finds Martin Scorsese once again in a sprawling crime saga, but this one is in a more muted key than previously explorations of this genre. Not to say that large portions of the film don’t have the energy of GoodFellas or Casino, but The Irishman is an overall more reflective and fune” read more
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
“Full disclosure: Quentin Tarantino’s cinema is something I’ve never responded to with the reverence and prosaic rhapsody of others. I find his comfortability with certain types of language empty provocations and his increasingly lackluster female characters are certain hardening of grossly mascu” read more
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
“I have always admired and enjoyed the How to Train Your Dragon franchise for its maturity and distinct lack of Dreamworks clichés. Their lone franchise that’s blissfully free of never-ending lazy pop culture references and jokes, celebrity voices that don’t fold into the material but stand apar” read more
“Well, you certainly must give Taika Waititi point for audacity if nothing else. The first thirty minutes or so of Jojo Rabbit had me clenched up wondering where it was going and what it was trying to do. It had a distinct possibility to go completely off the rails, if not into outright offense, and ” read more
“Judy Garland was one of the greatest screen performers of the 20th century, if not of all time. She was not merely a triple-threat capable of singing, dancing, and performing, but possessing that ephemeral thing dubbed “it.” She remains an impossibly charismatic star and an actor that often appe” read more