movie reviews
Movie Review: The Elephant 6 Recording Co.
4 stars out of 5Regional music scenes are a weird and special thing that perhaps don’t exist anymore. But they usually blossomed around a club or recording studio or like-minded musicians. If a scene was really good and really lucky, the music could seep through to the wider public and then someday end up as […]
Movie Review: Mission Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
3.5 stars out of 5 In the Mission: Impossible films, protagonist Ethan Hunt famously disguises himself with rubber masks. At age 61, Tom Cruise is starting to look like he’s always wearing a rubber mask. But by gum, he can still crank out an entertaining action spectacle. And despite the return of writer/director Chris McQuarrie, […]
Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
4 stars out of 5 I was 12 when Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, and the lost ark of the Covenant was mentioned in the Haftorah portion at my bar mitzvah. Needless to say, I have an awful of lot of emotional energy invested in the character of Indiana Jones. And though hard […]
Movie Review: Asteroid City
4 stars out of 5Wes Anderson is one of my all-time fave filmmakers so if he wants to continue experimenting with the form — puppets, anthology, and now, a story within a story — it’s certainly OK with me. Whether these “exercises” create a bit of distance between film and viewer and thereby prevent the […]
Movie Review: Sanctuary
3 stars out of 5 Last time I wrote about a French thriller, and because I’m a goofball, I nearly made a joke about French ticklers — but ultimately thought the better of it. Sanctuary, however, could use a tickler or two to spice things up. I have been a fan of Margaret Qualley since […]
Movie Review: The Night of the 12th
4 stars out of 5When I’ve been in a steady art-movie groove, I have had a reliable pleasure: French thrillers. They’re generally a notch above Hollywood thrillers, or at least the cool accents and unfamiliar settings make them seem that way. But the pandemic has been particularly hard on art-house theaters, with their audiences apparently […]
Movie Review: You Hurt My Feelings
3.5 stars out of 5I’m feeling a bit self-conscious. This whole movie is about hurt feelings; what if writer/director Nicole Holofcener (“Who I’ve had drinks with,” said in my best Jon Lovitz voice) googles this review and finds out I didn’t think it was perfect, and then feels all sad? Alas, like Lee Nails, I […]
Jack Silbert, curator