
VICE
As the old saying goes: Hindsight is 20-20. But therein lies the trap, the notion that since we can see the past clearly, we can also understand it. If history has taught us anything, untangling what we know from what … Continue reading VICE
As the old saying goes: Hindsight is 20-20. But therein lies the trap, the notion that since we can see the past clearly, we can also understand it. If history has taught us anything, untangling what we know from what … Continue reading VICE
It opens with a young woman walking her dog along the shore. There she stumbles upon a group of men in 18th-century British red coats unloading a clipper ship. It’s the 1990s: What in the world is going on here? … Continue reading SHE SAID
Ad Astra, from filmmaker par excellence James Gray, opens with a shot of the cosmos, vast and terrifying. As the camera pans across the twinkling dots of a thousand suns, a lens flare catches the frame and briefly illuminates the … Continue reading AD ASTRA
Gary Zimmer (Steve Carell) is a typical liberal elite, the kind they grow in labs somewhere along the coast. He dresses well enough to look like he has taste, works at a job that makes him enough money to look … Continue reading IRRESISTIBLE
Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood) is not exactly the image of your typical con artist. Nor is her name: Her parents named her after a homeless man who won the lottery hoping he would feel so honored, he would bequeath … Continue reading KAJILLIONAIRE
The Yi family has come to Arkansas. Immigrants from Korea by way of California, they’ve relocated in hopes of discovering the American Dream. What exactly that dream will look like is still a mystery to everyone but father Jacob (Steven … Continue reading MINARI
The Last Black Man in San Francisco’s Jimmie Fails and Montgomery Allen are Estragon and Vladimir. Only they’re not waiting for Godot; they’re waiting for the bus. Neither comes. Unlike Samuel Beckett’s two heroes, Fails and Allen get up and … Continue reading THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO
I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore. Howard Beale, Network Well, maybe not. The Big Short is director and co-writer Adam McKay’s run at an All the President’s Men or Network, and though it comes up short *cough cough* … Continue reading THE BIG SHORT