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Problemista
(2023)
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David Bax
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Julio Torres' wonderfully surreal new comedy, Problemista, nails the nauseous tension of being a vulnerable, lowly employee and mines serious laughs from it.
Posted Jan 21, 2026
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Misery
(1990)
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David Bax
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Misery is light on bumps and jolts (though not completely without them). Instead, Reiner relies on a sense of dread, which he introduces early on and then proceeds to crank up almost imperceptibly throughout.
Posted Jan 20, 2026
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About Dry Grasses
(2023)
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David Bax
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This is a movie about a pathetic man who is nonetheless relatable to those of us who are watching him.
Posted Jan 16, 2026
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Here
(2023)
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David Bax
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With its naturalistic performances and its tale of a friendship that burns all the brighter for having a fast-approaching expiration date, Here has a lot in common with Sofia Coppola‘s Lost in Translation.
Posted Jan 09, 2026
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Good One
(2024)
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David Bax
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An early clue that Good One is more than a light, humanistic dramedy comes in the form of Celia Hollander’s sad, harp-driven score.
Posted Jan 07, 2026
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Realm of Satan
(2024)
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David Bax
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Realm of Satan, in truth, might indulge its subjects a bit too much, adding special effects to make their imagined mysticism come to life.
Posted Jan 07, 2026
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Drift
(2023)
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David Bax
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Drift is a premise in search of a movie.
Posted Jan 06, 2026
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Presence
(2024)
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David Bax
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It calls to mind David Lowery‘s A Ghost Story, another film that turns the haunted house genre into a meditative–and similarly gorgeous–project.
Posted Dec 26, 2025
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Winner
(2024)
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David Bax
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This is a cutesy, quippy portrait of a complex American activist reduced to a yassified girlboss (and other such things I have no business trying to work into a review).
Posted Dec 19, 2025
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Hit Man
(2023)
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David Bax
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At its core, Hit Man is a movie about pretending.
Posted Dec 18, 2025
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Handling the Undead
(2024)
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David Bax
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Maybe it’s in keeping with the Norwegian personality to have such muted reactions to such drastic events; would your response to the return of a dead loved one be to silently light up a cigarette?
Posted Dec 13, 2025
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Sasquatch Sunset
(2024)
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David Bax
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Despite the seemingly outlandish hook, David and Nathan Zellner‘s Sasquatch Sunset, which follows what appear to be a father, mother and child of the species, is, above all, just very boring.
Posted Dec 11, 2025
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Bushman
(1971)
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David Bax
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May it outlast the popular counterculture it critiques.
Posted Dec 10, 2025
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Train Dreams
(2025)
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Scott Nye
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...regrettably facile...
Posted Oct 28, 2025
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The Testament of Ann Lee
(2025)
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Scott Nye
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...cstatically divine...
Posted Oct 28, 2025
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Truth & Treason
(2025)
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Tyler Smith
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I can’t help wondering how much more effective the story of Helmuth Hubener would be – how much more harrowing, how much more challenging, how much more tangible – if it were told by a director willing to take some narrative and stylistic risks.
Posted Oct 22, 2025
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Dìdi
(2024)
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David Bax
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There’s a refreshing honesty and, possibly, a particular boyishness, to a story of an artist discovering his medium not due to the purity of his innermost compulsions but just because he’s trying to be seen as cool.
Posted Oct 21, 2025
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Disco Boy
(2023)
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David Bax
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Alex and Jomo’s stories eventually becoming intertwined is not just a clever narrative trick, though it does provide emotionally powerful results.
Posted Oct 17, 2025
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Born in Flames
(1983)
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Rudie Obias
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The film is experimental and wild with a clear voice of anger and dissent.
Posted Sep 25, 2025
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Love Me
(2024)
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David Bax
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Love Me is the movie equivalent of people who type “smol.”
Posted Sep 12, 2025
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The Promised Land
(2023)
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David Bax
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This is clearly a high budget, professional production, the kind of thing Hollywood used to more regularly churn out for grown mainstream audiences who liked a little bit of class with their popcorn.
Posted Sep 10, 2025
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I Saw the TV Glow
(2024)
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David Bax
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Like World’s Fair, the film would have to be categorized as horror, assuming it would have to be categorized at all.
Posted Sep 07, 2025
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Freaky Tales
(2024)
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David Bax
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The screenplay here is so self-evidently engineered that it ultimately comes across as more of an exercise than a work of artistic passion.
Posted Sep 06, 2025
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Stress Positions
(2024)
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David Bax
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All I know is I want more from Hammel as soon as possible.
Posted Sep 02, 2025
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Saving Face
(2004)
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Rudie Obias
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Saving Face is charming and witty, while it has a lot to say about the relationship between mothers and their daughters — through the lens of an immigrant’s story.
Posted Aug 29, 2025
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Veni Vidi Vici
(2024)
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David Bax
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To call this film a comedy is more of description of its intent than of its content.
Posted Aug 27, 2025
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The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
(2024)
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David Bax
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It’s an argument that, as one person states in the film, “There are solutions to most things.”
Posted Aug 26, 2025
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Darkman
(1990)
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David Bax
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Sam Raimi’s Darkman may actually be the closest cinema has ever come to actually feeling like a comic book.
Posted Aug 23, 2025
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In a Violent Nature
(2024)
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David Bax
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Each shot feels as if it were painstakingly storyboarded and each cut judiciously predetermined.
Posted Aug 23, 2025
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Night Swim
(2024)
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David Bax
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Ultimately, Night Swim boils down to this: What if, instead of an entire snowbound hotel, Jack Torrance had a pool?
Posted Aug 20, 2025
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Ferrari
(2023)
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David Bax
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We may know what the future holds for the luxury car brand but seeing how it got there reveals many surprises.
Posted Aug 19, 2025
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Freud's Last Session
(2023)
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David Bax
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Employing hackneyed televisual tropes like a character’s monologue turning into the narration of the flashback to what he’s describing, Brown appears solely interested in fashioning what might be described as a sort of “book on video.”
Posted Aug 07, 2025
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Society of the Snow
(2023)
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David Bax
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Society of the Snow‘s aim, at which it succeeds, is to make us understand how not just a few but nearly all of a group of people decided to turn to cannibalism.
Posted Aug 06, 2025
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The Return of the Living Dead
(1985)
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David Bax
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It has nothing much going on beneath its gory, exploitation surface.
Posted Aug 06, 2025
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You Can Count on Me
(2000)
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Rudie Obias
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You Can Count on Me is great and one of the most important movies in American independent cinema of the last 25 years.
Posted Jul 22, 2025
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Immediate Family
(2022)
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David Bax
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It’s as if Tedesco is straining to insist on his subjects’ importance.
Posted Jul 18, 2025
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Origin
(2023)
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David Bax
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Somehow, Duvernay’s passion makes all of this feel more like a dedicated personal project than some kind of presentation.
Posted Jul 17, 2025
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Eileen
(2023)
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David Bax
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Oldroyd lets us live in the nervous fantasies brought on by infatuation and sexual/homicidal daydreaming.
Posted Jul 16, 2025
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The Boy and the Heron
(2023)
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David Bax
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It may simultaneously prepare kids for the messy world ahead and assuage adults who have remained unable to figure it out.
Posted Jul 10, 2025
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They Shot the Piano Player
(2023)
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David Bax
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They Shot the Piano Player is nearly as much a film about the origins of bossa nova as it is about Tenório Jr.
Posted Jul 09, 2025
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Sorcerer
(1977)
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Rudie Obias
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Overall, Sorcerer is William Friedkin’s masterwork, as a storyteller and filmmaker.
Posted Jul 09, 2025
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Day of the Dead
(1985)
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Sarah Brinks
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The soundtrack and special effects are very much of their time, and often irritating. The two biggest problems I had with the film are how sexist and racist it was. I know a lot of that comes back to the social commentary, but it is way over the top.
Posted Jun 24, 2025
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The Strangler
(1970)
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David Bax
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...for as much as it belongs to any number of genres, from giallo to musical and many in between, it is also a unique work.
Posted Jun 20, 2025
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The Wiz
(1978)
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Rudie Obias
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It’s tough to separate the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz, when watching The Wiz, but it really has nothing to do with the 1978 musical.
Posted Jun 13, 2025
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Youth (Spring)
(2023)
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David Bax
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Youth (Spring) just wants you to not look away.
Posted Jun 06, 2025
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A Still Small Voice
(2023)
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David Bax
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The intimacy Lorentzen is able to achieve makes it seem as if it’s impossible that a camera, much less an operator, are there in the room while these whispered reveries are shared.
Posted May 28, 2025
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Withnail and I
(1987)
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Rudie Obias
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It’s truly a cult classic and one of the best films from Bruce Robinson, a director who has made far too little during his filmmaking career.
Posted May 24, 2025
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Mountains
(2023)
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David Bax
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It’s a wonderful work of drama but also one of non-fiction, accompanied by the terrible crashing sounds of homes being reduced to lots for sale.
Posted May 24, 2025
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Io Capitano
(2023)
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David Bax
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Perhaps the biggest sign that the film represents a leap forward for Garrone, though, is that he gracefully portrays touching moments of kindness amidst all the turmoil.
Posted May 23, 2025
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Close Your Eyes
(2023)
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David Bax
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The presentation of Close Your Eyes is gargantuanly filmic.
Posted May 16, 2025
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