Posted in January 2017

Best of Criterion’s Releases, January 2017

Best of Criterion’s Releases, January 2017

New year, new Criterions! (New month, new Criterions, really, but shut up, indulged me.) January’s slate is, in a word, tight, featuring His Girl Friday and Something Wild. For me, the most important entry of the bunch is Black Girl, and I’m not just saying that because I wrote about it (though maybe a little because I wrote about … Continue reading

TV Review: Taboo, Episode 1.03

TV Review: Taboo, Episode 1.03

Alright! A quality episode of Taboo! After the stumbles taken in “Episode 2,” it’s nice to see the show get its footing back by actually telling a story instead of just checking off plot points. Plus, people who are not Tom Hardy are now getting more opportunity to strut their stuff, though Hardy is still the … Continue reading

Review: Detour, 2017, dir. Christopher Smith

Review: Detour, 2017, dir. Christopher Smith

I reviewed Christopher Smith’s Black Death on this very site six years ago, and so it was something of a pleasure to review his latest, Detour, even if I’m still murky on whether or not I think Detour is good. I liked it. I liked the film’s central gimmick, in which two narratives unfold representing the consequences of … Continue reading

Review: The Workers Cup, 2017, dir. Adam Sobel

Review: The Workers Cup, 2017, dir. Adam Sobel

I’m not at Sundance, but that doesn’t mean I can’t remotely cover Sundance from home! For The Playlist, I reviewed a pretty good documentary called The Workers Cup, about workers building the future stadium for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and by “building” I mean “kinda being treated as subhuman by their employers in some truly fucked … Continue reading

Review: The Red Turtle, 2017, dir.  Michaël Dudok de Wit

Review: The Red Turtle, 2017, dir. Michaël Dudok de Wit

Surprise: Studio Ghibli made a beautiful movie. Once you’re done collecting your jaw from the floor, you can click this link and zip over to The Playlist and read the review I wrote about Michaël Dudok de Wit’s The Red Turtle, a movie so lovely, minimalist, and thoughtful that it may assuage whatever sociopolitical anxieties you’re wrestling … Continue reading

TV Review: Taboo, Episode 1.02

TV Review: Taboo, Episode 1.02

Annnnnnd just like that, after Taboo‘s pilot episode, we see a steep drop-off in its palability. I wouldn’t call it “bad,” per se, but boy, it is way overstuffed; each time I thought I’d finished summing up the events of the second episode (titled, rather simply, “Episode 2”), I realized that I’d left something out. Plot, … Continue reading