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The Queen of Spain

“Is this supposed to be a comedy or a melodrama about the behind-the-scenes machinations of filmmaking? Is there a political satire going on here or dishy tell all about Spain’s movie industry with proxies for its major stars? It’s difficult to say as The Queen of Spain wants to be all these thin” read more

Zoom

“Essentially a puzzle box film that’s too in love with its own conceit to bother with things like character, Zoom is all structure and no payoff. Three stories, three disparate visuals, and a thread connecting all three of them, which I will be openly discussing so turn away if you don’t want to ” read more

The Love Witch

“The melodrama of 50s and 60s cinema gets shoved through Anna Biller’s unhinged prism in the delightful The Love Witch. There’s a little bit of Jacques Demy’s candy-colored musicals here, the repressed sexuality of Vincente Minnelli there, and all of it is run through her distinctly feminist an” read more

Viva

“All hail Anna Biller, a one-woman film studio who wears her influences with all the mash-note love of a dyed in the wool fangirl, and her riotous debut, Viva. A film destined for cult-like devotion, Viva finds Biller writing, directing, producing, starring, designing, and editing her story of a bore” read more

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“I suppose the interiority of Shirley Jackson’s prose proves a problem to visualize as several adaptations of her work jettison the slow creeping dread for other bells and whistles. Sure, Robert Wise got the balance right with The Haunting, but Jan De Bont absolutely did not. Do you remember the 19” read more

Burn After Reading

“A complete tonal mess that finds the Coen Brothers swinging wildly from wry farce to blood-soaked slapstick to harebrained lampoonery, Burn After Reading is muddled but entertaining enough. It seems that every time the Coens obtain some level of respectability they immediately follow it up with a co” read more

The Punisher

“You can almost see the film that Jonathan Hensleigh was trying to make if you squint and turn your face at just the right angle during any scene of The Punisher. It’s one built upon the rough, gritty cinema of Don Siegel, John Frankenheimer, and Sam Peckinpah, but without their eye for composition” read more

Gothika

“Too muddled to be taken seriously, too campy to be scary, Gothika exists in some cinematic neverwhere that finds its various actors seemingly performing in completely different movies that coexist from in a filmic multiverse. Stylish to a fault, it’s always a red flag when a film has too much goin” read more

The Man in the White Suit

“The friction between commerce (read: capitalism) and scientific progress is the through line for The Man in the White Suit, a gentle ‘comedy’ from Ealing that’s more mildly charming than funny. If there’s another staple of the Ealing formula that emerged in watching these films back-to-back-” read more

The Lavender Hill Mob

“Alec Guinness’ first Oscar nomination came thanks to this Ealing Studios caper-gone-wrong comedy. Like The Killing played as grand farce, The Lavender Hill Mob is an enjoyable little glimpse of two workaday schlubs trying for something extraordinary, if criminal. Hey, we all need our hobbies.   ” read more

Kind Hearts and Coronets

“The Brits are already known for their stiff-lipped humor, and Kind Hearts and Coronets adds to that by giving the entire proceedings a moribund flavor. It isn’t just that the film is politely sarcastic, even by the already rigid standards of the Brits, but it is decidedly dark and twisted in its w” read more

Christmas Portrait

“The undisputed masters of soft rock feel like a natural for so white bread a genre as holiday music, but there’s still something curiously devoid of pizzazz here. Nary a hint of darkness or an unexpected guitar solo like their greatest singles, Christmas Portrait is nearly oppressive in its demand” read more

Just Can’t Get Enough: New Wave Christmas

“As any compilation threatens to do, Rhino’s yuletide entry for Just Can’t Get Enough is all peaks and valleys. For all of the genuinely fun, oddball glories like XTC’s “Thanks for Christmas” and Mono Puff’s “Careless Santa,” there’s the dreariness of Root Boy Slim’s “Xmas at K-” read more