In director Jim Archer’s subtly humorous mockumentary about a lonely inventor and his defiant invention, the powers of creation and … More
Category: movie reviews
This Time Will Be Different — Four Good Days Tackles Addiction, Change
While Four Good Days isn’t exactly uplifting, spending a mere 100 minutes watching the heart-wrenching, true-to-life movie feels like more … More
Thoughtful and Perceptive, Boiling Point Serves Up a Timely Dish
That a toxic and unrelenting work environment isn’t good for the mind and body is hardly breaking news. But Boiling … More
In The Holdovers, Snideness Turns Into Sympathy
With its small circle of contrasting characters and tight-knit holiday setting, The Holdovers serves up laughter, wit, and a reminder of how little … More
A Poetic Reminder to Soak Up Life’s Simple, Everyday Delights
Directed by Wim Wenders, the Oscar-nominated movie Perfect Days could have benefited from diving deeper into the past of its … More
Quirky and Endearing, Robot Dreams is a Feast for the Eyes and the Heart
Robot Dreams is a playful yet thoughtful examination of friendship, identity, and what it means to experience the unpredictable nature of life.
Nowhere Special, A Profound Meditation on Loss—and Love
Nowhere Special is not an easy film to watch. It’s about a dying father in his early thirties who must, … More
Love and Lament in Los Alamos: a Biopic of Mathematician Stanislaw Ulam
Adventures of a Mathematician is a movie inspired by the memoir of Stanislaw Ulam—a brilliant Polish mathematician who came to … More
Vision without Sight: Monika Demonstrates the Power of Personal Agency
The young protagonist of a short movie, Monika, shows that external forces in one’s life don’t have to get the final say
The Age of Innocence Brought to the Screen: Martin Scorsese Adopts Edith Wharton
One of Martin Scorsese’s most well-received films—and there are many—is Taxi Driver. It came out 1976; it was the same … More
The American Short Story Film Series —The Blue Hotel
In this gripping film adaptation of Stephen Crane’s short story, viewers are transported to a modest hotel in the backwater … More
Cézanne et Moi — A Tale of Two Artists and a Friendship in Flux
I don’t know whether artists have more interesting or tumultuous friendships than anyone else. I would suspect that they don’t. … More
Film review: God’s Little Acre (1958)
The signs that something is a little zany about Ty Ty Walden and his financially-ailing Southern family aren’t too hard … More
The American Short Story Film Series Puts “Paul’s Case” on the Screen
Poor Paul; always the oddball. His own father finds him bizarre, and when we first meet him in Willa Cather’s … More
Inside Blackwell’s Asylum — A Film Adaptation of Nellie Bly’s Undercover Reporting
Certain words are likely to come to mind when watching 10 Days in a Mad-House, a movie based on a … More
Sounder — A Poignant Movie about Family and Fortitude
Adapted from the novel of the same name, Sounder tells the story of a struggling African American family during the … More
An Engrossing Drama about the Talented and Tragic Sculptor, Camille Claudel
There aren’t many bigger names in the history of sculpture than Auguste Rodin, the French artist of the 19th century. … More
A Brilliantly-Acted but Narrow Biopic of J.M.W. Turner
Fierce, grumpy, and unfailingly devoted to his craft, the genius that resided in J.M.W. Turner seems to have left little … More
An Intriuging But Shallow 1957 Film of Torquato Tasso’s Great Epic
Certain epic poems, despite their brilliance and exceptionally vibrant relationship to companions in the genre, are scarcely heard of anymore. … More
Homer on the Screen: A ’90s Miniseries of The Odyssey
In terms of TV years, the 1997 miniseries The Odyssey, directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, feels like something of a relic. … More
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