Judging purely by scale, Rabbit Trap could have been made during the depths of the COVID pandemic. Set on an isolated Welsh hillside that gives way to a dense and disorienting forest pushes thoughts of the wider world out of your mind. The cast consists of just four people, one
"What's the difference between love and obsession? I can never tell them apart."
"Where else would you be given such an opportunity?! Nowhere else, that's the answer!"
"We are not macaroni!"
Between the complications inherent in releasing movies during the COVID pandemic, lending his voice to animated features, and the limited theatrical runs enjoyed by most streaming studio fare, Relay marks Riz Ahmed's return to the screen in a starring role. So it's quite bold that for
"Side effects include fever, foolishness, and butt guts."
"If you can't bite, don't show your teeth."
Welcome to the year of the romcom! Much has been made of the genre’s disappearance from the theatrical experience. True, they still flood streaming services, with Netflix distributing the best of recent years in Richard Linklater’s Hit Man. But with the exception of Anyone But You, few have
"All money ain't good money."
After a couple of fake trailers for amusingly dumb horror flicks, it was a genuine surprise that the opening of the film was shot from Jimmy's perspective. We're along for the ride in real-time as Jimmy putters and mutters about his apartment, doing coke and smoking
True crime has been around for hundreds of years, arising not long after the invention of the printing press. Whether it serves as a warning to the populace that a pleasant neighborhood is no guarantee of safety, or as pure entertainment designed to satiate our innate curiosity about the unfathomable
The culture war is sustained largely by reducing children to pawns, devices to deflect all criticism, stripping them of their agency and their voice. It's reaching a fever pitch, with the federal government and state administrations pushing various polices under the guise of protecting kids: book bans, barring
New Releases
"No dissent, only warmth."
Pop Culture Maniacs
The very first scene of Oh, Hi! announces the shape the story will take. Iris (Molly Gordon) has beckoned Max (Geraldine Viswanathan) to the vacation home she's sharing with her boyfriend Isaac (Logan Lerman) for the weekend. Both women are in disbelief about an unnamed "bad thing&
New Releases
"God bless your lost soul, and have a good night."
New Releases
"Your pain is not a coincidence. You are not a coincidence. We are not a coincidence. Will you fight?"
Pop Culture Maniacs
"To have given each one of the million Negro free families a forty-acre freehold would have made a basis of real democracy in the United States that might easily have transformed the modern world." - W. E. B. Du Bois
New Releases
"I've got enough ammunition for a world war."
Tidbits
Solid films you may have missed.
usaw
The second edition of my mid-year check-in post.
New Releases
Kosinski attempts to cash in on the popularity of "Drive to Survive".
New Releases
"Memento amoris - remember you must love."
New Releases
"I am wonderful, I deserve to be wonderful, and I contain multitudes."
New Releases
"It's like they say: you're not ugly, you just don't have money."