Although it was obviously a cataclysmic tragedy, World War II has had many a kitschy film treatment (e.g. Indiana Jones, Inglourious Basterds) among the melodramas and earnest soldier stories.  Meanwhile, without the histrionic evil of the Axis, Worl …Read more

The human double has long been in use by movies about making movies, from David Lynch’s ‘trilogy’ of Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire, to Bergman’s Persona, and Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation. Within this category, movie-movies that are …Read more

Isle of Dogs, Wes Anderson’s ninth feature and second animated outing, gives us an embarrassment of visual riches. While his previous film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, seemed to represent an apex of the distinct Wes Anderson style, in Isle of Dogs, we …Read more

Have movies about the hapless everyman, buffeted between the aggressive hypocrisy of suburbia and the depredations of corporate greed, become outdated? Not so long ago, this ethic existed in just about every flavor: arty, stage-actoring American Beau …Read more

We have lately become accustomed to parsing through the posthumous works of our dearest artists. Where some are heavy with a wisdom that is premised on their imminent mortality like Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker or Harry Dean Stanton’s world-wea …Read more

To be a fan of Michael Haneke is a peculiar, if not rare, condition. The Austrian auteur has been singled out for his cruelty as a director, both to his subjects on screen and to his viewers. So to be a fan is to embrace the pain he inflicts. But in …Read more

I, Tonya is a fun movie, and it knows it. Telling the story of disgraced Olympian figure skater, Tonya Harding, who was (debatably) complicit in the attack of her teammate Nancy Kerrigan in 1994, the new movie is told in a style that savages the four …Read more

Towards the beginning of Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winning movie The Square, our hero, a dashing curator called Christian (Claes Bang), finds himself in the middle of a hysterical domestic dispute. After he and another bystander instinctively shield …Read more

To emerge from a movie and compliment its cinematography is either an admission that in lieu of any meaningful insight, the speaker is vain enough to attempt a weak assertion of technical knowledge, or, it can serve as a dig in the Aretha Franklin sc …Read more

The heist movie is a micro-genre that makes certain promises. We must have a Rube Goldberg machine of a plan — thrilling in its mild opacity and unexpected precision; the prize must be cartoonish in its concrete dimensions (think big diamond, or pile …Read more