Film Clips
A survival thriller and a crime drama
“Heart of the Beast” ⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 2.5 out of 4. The vast wilds of Alaska are where James Belmont (Brad Pitt) goes to tamp down the PTSD he suffered as a former special ops sergeant, as well as heal the war scars of his loyal German Shepherd Odin, who served with Belmont during multiple Middle […]
Catching predators in the name of fame
“Primetime” ⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 3 out of 4. Documentarian Lance Oppenheim (“Ren Faire,” “Spermworld”) steps into the narrative feature-scape with this lurid submersion into the early years of online predation, where chatrooms were used as Venus flytraps to snare underage targets and goad them into real-life meetups. The scummy underbelly, as Oppenheim depicts it in “Primetime,” […]
Intensity in survival and horror
“The Weight” ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 3.5 out of 4. In The Weight,” a muscular, Depression-era survival drama, Ethan Hawke again looms large in small, gritty fare. Hawke brings a lean, tightly wound intensity to a man carrying more than his body— or perhaps his soul — can bear. It’s another powerful performance, after a deserved Oscar […]
An intimate documentary, a kidnapping rescue and a black comedy debut
“Remake” ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 3.5 out of 4. Ross McElwee’s “Remake” opens with a wry proposition: a Hollywood producer wants to turn McElwee’s 1986 documentary, “Sherman’s March” — the filmmaker’s meandering meditation on love, Southern culture, and romantic rejection — into a conventional scripted feature, perhaps even a comedy. Questions abound: Who would play McElwee? How […]
Art horror, serial killer nonchiller, espionage comedy and a gorefest
“Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” ⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 3 out of 4. In this latest art-horror curio from Jane Schoenbrun, the alt-indie hand behind psycho-chillers “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” (2021) and “I Saw the TV Glow” (2024), the “Friday the 13th” film franchise and gender politics get skewered with bloody orgasmic […]
Two roads, one driven by survival, the other by friendship
“The Dog Stars” ⭐⭐ Rating: 2 out of 4. Ridley Scott has been down apocalyptic-ish roads before, notably with game changing sci-fi classics “Alien” (1979) and “Blade Runner” (1982). In “The Dog Stars,” adapted from Peter Heller’s 2012 novel, we trek through uneven end-of-times terrain. A virus has wiped out most of humanity, leaving Hig […]
In these films, creatures and cartoon characters live among us
“Hope” ⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 2.5 out of 4. For those who relish Korean creature-feature flicks laced with social commentary — think “The Host” (2006) or the gonzo zombie blast “Train to Busan” (2016) — “Hope” may scratch your itch. But be advised, you’ll be nearly an hour in before the first beastie rears its ugly head […]
‘Tony’ gives us an appetizing look at Anthony Bourdain’s bildungsroman
“Late Fame” ⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 2.5 out of 4. Director Kent Jones (“Diane“ (2018)) works with a killer cast in this reset of a novella by Arthur Schnitzler, with 1890s Vienna transposed to modern day New York City (the script’s by Samy Burch, “May December” and the upcoming “Coyote vs Acme”). The esteemed Willem Dafoe stars […]
In these movies, home is where the hell is
It’s family survival week in a pair of punchy sci-fi thrillers, where death lurks just beyond the mailbox. “The Last House,” on Netflix, finds a Pacific Northwest family sealed inside their house due to mysterious forces at play. Over at the “End of Oak Street,” a big-screen undertaking with Spielberg-ian overtones, dinosaurs move into a […]
Gregg Araki’s latest, an erotic comedy thriller
“I Want Your Sex” ⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 3 out of 4. And keeping with the sex theme: It’s been 12 years since Gregg Araki made his last film, “White Bird in a Blizzard,” a competently done mystery and something of a restrained effort compared to his gloriously gonzo, queer-leaning, desperado films of the 1990s (“Totally F***ed […]