Arts
Film Review: Solo: A Star Wars Story
Coming from veteran director Ron Howard, Solo: A Star Wars Story comes across as safe without any significant directorial uniqueness. Essentially, anyone could have made this sci-fi adventure. … read more
Film Review: 1945
1945 is, in many ways, a perfect little film—one of the rare great stories in which nothing really happens, yet tension constantly builds. It is a timely and important reminder of the past and a rejection of the new narratives being told. … read more
Content Shifter: 11 Adult Swim Shows You (Probably) Don’t Know
Adult Swim, the overnight alter-ego of the Cartoon Network, has been derided as an outlet of stupid and borderline-satanic TV content for stoners and insomniacs since it launched in 2001 … at around 11 p.m. and nine days before 9/11, conspiracy theorists. … read more
Review: Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami
Bloodlight and Bami pulls back the curtain and gives us the fly-on-the-wall cinema verité approach—this is a portrait of the artist, not just of Jones but of the artist as identity. … read more
Film Review: You Were Never Really Here
Along with Thomas Townend’s captivating cinematography that enters a realm of gorgeous chaos, Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here delivers a tumultuous story with a less-is-more sensibility. … read more
Film Review: Isle of Dogs
Isle of Dogs is set in the not-too-distant future Japan. The overpopulation of sickly canines has become virtually unbearable. Rather than seeking a cure for the illnesses, the ghastly mayor banishes all dogs to Trash Island, and that includes his nephew Atari’s pet, Spots (voiced by Liev Schreiber). … read more
Film Review: Lean on Pete
Lean on Pete’s initial imagery, that of a boy and his horse trekking across the desert, plays into the romanticized conception of an America that doesn’t exist now and probably never did. … read more
Film Review: The Rider
Melding fact and fiction, Chloé Zhao’s second feature film, The Rider, remains on the Pine Ridge Reservation to paint an aching portrait of rodeo cowboys among Oglala Lakota Tribe (Sioux) community. … read more
Film Review: Foxtrot
Foxtrot’s three acts are tonally distinct, each bringing their own lurching plot twists, each grim or violent or (bleakly) humorous in their own ways. But the final chapter becomes oppressive in its reality, and however Maoz employs the hypnagogic and the hyperreal, he asks his audience to ponder war and borders. … read more
Film Review: Tomb Raider
While there have already been two mediocre productions developed for the Tomb Raider series starring Angelina Jolie, this reboot, now starring Alicia Vikander, closely follows the revamped video games’ storyline created in 2014. Rather than being objectified with skimpy clothing and cartoonish body characteristics, the new Lara Croft is more about survival and becoming a strong, leading-woman hero. … read more