Jared Mobarak

The film presents itself as an objective look at everything that might go into a school shooting similar to Elephant but with a narrative propulsion that also seeks to subjectively give us reasons why. It’s a duality that can’t help but give someone pause, especially if that someone has his/her own ideas about what the “real” systemic issues behind these tragedies are.

With some acting that leaves us wanting and the excruciatingly slow reveals of gore to fool us into thinking we experienced impact and not aftermath at the start, Kitamura must use everything at his disposal to lead us into the high stakes arena of predator and prey.

Beyond what the film says and represents, it’s also well made.

Thankfully the performances try to elevate the plot since each character seems catered to the actor cast.

We witness Itzhak’s easy sense of humor, his often silent chuckle that almost makes it seem he’s ready to cry, and the impact music has on him while playing or listening. He explains with full candor how the teaching styles he hated as a child are the ones he has adopted. He’s self-deprecatingly jovial, religious and yet still pragmatic.

This story isn’t working towards a solution or revisionist history. It merely reminds us that the Devil doesn’t commit atrocities. Men and women do. Kingsley and Hilmar ensure we believe this by delivering three-dimensional performances we’re used to seeing on the heroic side.

The result is a fantasy adventure with high stakes despite death seeming impermanent throughout. Rather than be about finding eternal life like many tales of its kind are, Big Fish & Begonia is about giving it.

They can get too caught up in characterizations that render each a bit one-note (Susan’s hippie sensibilities, Joe’s type-A machismo, Anna’s selfish resentment, and Tom’s martyrdom), but we forgive this reality because the story deals in contrasts. They’re intentionally opposites as couples and individuals for a reason.

There’s no better way to show these power dynamics than via long takes. By letting the events play out, Hania refuses to let her lead off the hook emotionally. Al Ferjani is therefore thrown into the fire, her Mariam an exposed nerve reacting on impulse to everything that occurs.

While the film isn’t as subtle as A Monster Calls or Where the Wild Things Are, it captures the messiness of suffering just as well.

At the end of the day a horror film is successful if it can make your heart pound out of your chest. And for most of Verónica, Plaza and Navarro do exactly that.

Watching bad people be bad gets tiring, especially when there’s someone like Oyelowo transcending the material to lend complexity and uncertainty.

I’m not certain if the truth ever came out about that evening’s events beyond speculation, but I don’t think anyone would question the believably authentic script that Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan wrote for Chappaquiddick.

The songs are catchy, the romance sweetly intense, and the lack of meaty drama an intentional maneuver to keep things light. As a distraction from life’s inherent drama, you could do a lot worse.

A unique hybrid wherein fact is projected through a prism of fiction as both a mechanism to educate outsiders and heal from within.

Werewolf isn’t about addiction’s cruelty. McKenzie has given us a story about an addict’s salvation.

The pace might be slow, but it allows some great performances to breathe.

The Lodgers reveals itself to be a beautiful gothic horror with a captivating truth mishandled in a desire to surprise more than resonate.

Sarnet orchestrates authentic horror through a supernatural filter wherein beautiful black and white cinematography can immortalize abject despair.

While it may do a better job at depicting the nihilistic depravity of living through social media at the detriment of “real life” than Ingrid Goes West, Robert Mockler’s Like Me still fails to capture the psychological prison this artificial life creates beyond its surface chaos.

While the execution of every weak excuse for a twist and turn is really the culprit behind Looking Glass‘ failure, I would be remiss to not point a finger at Cage too.

Much of the film is forgettable in the sense that you’ve seen it all before. But where the jokes at the beginning feel tired, the drama at the end lands.

We’re shown damning cycles feeding on each other that prove worse when their hypocrisy and irony is acknowledged. And both Wood and Stone will make you scream and cry depending on what they allow or ignite.

Fuglsig’s job was to document, commemorate, and inspire. He does all three.

There’s also some commentary about twenty-first century technology and cellphone culture, but I don’t think Taylor goes far enough to make it more than throwaway insight soon forgotten for crazed violence. As far as the latter goes, Mom and Dad delivers crazy in an exciting way that never bores.

While I really like how Kalashnikov doesn’t inject himself into the footage with chapter titles, narration, or government officials explaining things, it’s difficult not to wonder if a bit more guidance could have helped The Road Movie from risking reductive criticism as a glorified YouTube playlist.

There are countless openings for the plot to take wild left turns and embrace its overt severity as entertainment, but Proud Mary would rather stay the course of its one-note trajectory and remain earnest in its desire to be taken seriously.

Salama and co-writer Omar Khaled ingeniously use the death of Michael Jackson as the catalyst to go back to Khaled’s adolescence.