Stopmotion: The Ash Man Cometh
Filmmakers can be an obsessive bunch. Perhaps you know this already. The job gives them so many details to worry over that can make...
Drive-Away Dolls: Severance
Almost since there have been lesbians in movies, there have been crime thrillers to put them in. Drive-Away Dolls is just the latest of...
Taste of Things: Chef’s Kiss
The first half-hour of The Taste of Things is entirely taken up with the characters preparing a meal. First, a simple omelet for themselves:...
How to Have Sex: Trouble in Paradise
Over in the U.K., people are losing their minds over a movie with the attention-grabbing title of How to Have Sex. It popped up...
Lisa Frankenstein: Love Is Undead
Kathryn Newton has spent the last few years being cast as conventional pretty girls in such different films as the addiction drama Ben Is...
Zone of Interest: Next-Door Neighbors
I wrote in my Top 10 Movies list that Japan had a great year in 2023. I could have mentioned Germany, too. That country...
Mean Girls: It Roars
Dear God, has it really been 20 years since the original Mean Girls came out? (Not quite, but it will be in a few...
American Fiction: Little Black Book
Here’s something I didn’t know we were missing: Black literary satire. Over the years, Black cinema has poked fun of Black filmmakers (Hollywood Shuffle),...
Maestro: It’s All Just Music
And now, an apocryphal story about Leonard Bernstein. Some 40 years ago, he conducted a Mozart piece at the Grammy Awards ceremony, and after...
The Iron Claw: Beyond the Ring
They’re an essential part of moviegoing and pop music. We call them heartthrobs, those softly beautiful, feminine-looking young guys whom teenage girls (and the...