Beltmann

Netflix's The Good Nurse offers proof that sometimes good performances aren't enough. There's nothing wrong with the way Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne bring to life the true crime story of a night nurse who suspects that her new coworker has poisoned a patient. But we all know from the headlines that serial killer Charles Cullen confessed to dozens of murders at several hospitals and most likely killed hundreds more, which renders inert the movie's main dramatic gear: Will Chastain elicit a confession from Redmayne? There is no edginess, no suspense as the answer evolves. I was intereste

Slacker always peters out for me, but I've seen it countless times and keep going back to it. It's one of those early '90s movies that proved extremely formative and inspiring for this burgeoning cinephile, pushing me deeper into movie love.

So true. Singles hasn't dated well, and Empire Records has always been total cringe. I rewatched the latter not too long ago just to see if I had been unfair way back when. Nah.

I enjoyed Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes, which opens with a couple arriving at a mysterious German castle. What begins as a funny pastiche of '60s Eurohorror splinters into something entirely different, and the result becomes a meta experiment that blurs the line between reality, make-believe, the supernatural and movies. The introduction of a second couple creates thematic ripples between the various layers. All that doubling plays simultaneously as a parody of European art cinema and a sincere replica. There's also a practical gore effect that memorably exists, um, in the realm of the senses.

It’s been nearly 30 years since I last watched Ace in the Hole, which stars Kirk Douglas as Chuck Tatum, an unprincipled journalist who exploits Leo, a local man stuck in a collapsed cave, for self-serving headlines. It's no surprise to see that Billy Wilder's 1951 film noir has lost none of its cynicism, savagery, and relevance. This time around I was especially struck by how the pocket-sized hole that traps Leo is used in relation to other locations in the film. The movie opens by placing Tatum in his own parallel series of claustrophobic spaces, including a broken convertible, a modest news

Listen, at one point while watching Plane I shouted "Holy BALLS!" with a big smile on my face except it wasn't "balls" it was something else and I don't know what more we need from a January action movie but now I'm mad that I didn't get more popcorn.

Today I saw Knock at the Cabin Door. There's pleasure to be had in watching M. Night Shyamalan direct the heck out of this genre exercise--look at that rack focus!--but all that technical mastery is at the service of something both phony and overly simplistic. The changes made to the ending of the source novel signal just how far Shyamalan was willing to go to remove any kind of ambiguity, moral inquiry or philosophical wrangling. But it's worse than that. To keep this spoiler-free, I'll merely add that on an allegorical level, what this reactionary movie says about marginalized folks, obedien

After revisiting Everything Everywhere All at Once, I remain impressed, exhausted, and little unsure. It would be glib to say the movie heralds a new kind of leading-edge cinema, one that reflects the age of inexpensive technology, digital ingenuity, multitasking, gaming, the Internet, and short-burst content like TikTok videos liberated from the usual constraints of composition and narrative. After all, we’ve been headed down this path for 25 years; the forward march contains works as disparate as Run Lola Run, Jackass, Requiem for a Dream, Tarnation, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Unfriended,

At the risk of recency bias, I’m going to declare Mohammad Reza Aslani’s Chess of the Wind one of the greatest movies ever made. Too bold? Maybe. Might the latest Sight & Sound poll have me overthinking what it means to belong to the canon? Perhaps. But my mind can’t stop replaying this forgotten Iranian marvel that now has an epic reclamation story to join its towering artistic ambition. Brazenly sabotaged by rivals upon its 1976 release, and then banned after the ‘79 Islamic revolution, the movie was believed lost forever. Then, in an impossibly Hollywood-like twist, Aslani’s son chanced

Here's my problem with the ending of Emily the Criminal: It's the ending of a much dumber movie than the one it purports to be, and a much dumber movie than the one we've been watching. Let me dive into the weeds simply by asking some questions. Spoilers ahead. Why does Emily not at least tie up Khalil before leaving the premises? Why does she simply leave Youcef to die in the car? Just moments earlier, she chose to leave a phone for her injured enemy Khalil to call for help, so why doesn't she also give the same grace to her beloved partner? The scene doesn't work as a wrenching e

Happy New Year, everyone! What are your most anticipated movies for 2023? Me, I'm eager for the new Scorsese.

Last week I showed Kelly Reichardt's "Wendy and Lucy," which is heavily influenced by Italian Neorealism, to my film students. High schoolers always find this minimalist movie challenging, for obvious reasons. I'll never forget the day, though, when one of my quietest students lingered after class to tearfully thank me for showing it. She told me that "Wendy and Lucy" was the best movie she ever saw, because it was the first movie that truly understood her life and her family's challenges. She didn't know such movies even existed, and she was grateful to be seen in a way that once seemed unthi

After a quick glance, I see that Cruel Country has placed on the year-best lists for the outlets listed below. Any others out there? Ultimate Classic Rock (#6) Uncut (#6) Variety - Chris Willman (#10)

I'm normally willing to go to great lengths to suspend disbelief, but the ending of Emily the Criminal zooms way past my breaking point. It's a crock. Which is a shame, since the rest of this low-key thriller, carried exclusively by Aubrey Plaza's terrific performance, bitterly conveys something true about the traps of modern-day American capitalism.

I found Neptune Frost rather insufferable, but I’m still forever grateful for these words of wisdom: “One who swallows a whole coconut trusts his anus.”

In 1989, the 15-year-old me loved Jerry Lee Lewis, Dennis Quaid, and Winona Ryder, so I loved this movie, too. The 15-year-old me also couldn't see that the movie's point-of-view, which positions Lewis as a defiant champion of non-conformity, is not just relentlessly cartoonish but also irredeemably uncritical about its main dramatic turn. The movie's bullshit perspective on Lewis' marriage to the 13-year-old Myra Gale Brown seems to think the only great wrong was how this unfettered romantic was so misunderstood by the puritanical public, which tragically damaged the marriage but also unfairl

I last viewed this playful, ruminative documentary in 2017, before Agnès Varda's death and before I started needing eye injections similar to those Varda receives in the film. While visiting the grave of Henry Cartier-Bresson, Varda's co-director JR asks her whether she fears death. "I don't think I'm afraid, but... I might be at the end," the 88-year-old Varda says. "I'm looking forward to it." "Really, why?" "Because that'll be that." I think about this exchange a lot.

Right now Decision to Leave is one of my favorites of the year. It surprised me--for a Park Chan-Wook noir about obsession, it is weirdly devoid of cynicism, carnality, and lurid violence--but only in ways that made it better than expected. One of the things that I liked was the constant presence of technology, and how digital devices became inextricably linked to the investigation, the romantic bonding, and the larger ideas related to communication. I also cherished the creative editing, which often generated ingenious, funny transitions. Best of all, though, is how it reaches for deep feelin

Lots of people seem to be misreading The Fabelmans as Steven Spielberg’s romanticized version of "Here's why I love movies and how making them helped me process trauma." Sure, that's in the movie (and handled well, in my opinion), but what elevates the movie is how it goes far beyond that, interrogating the meaning of movies in a reflective and at times regretful way. There's much more ambivalence, and thought, in The Fabelmans than in just about any other Spielberg movie. Imagine being the kind of person unwilling to surrender to what Spielberg does here. True, cynicism has no pla

Agree with much of what was said here regarding Glass Onion, which strikes me as a better, angrier satirical takedown of the super-rich than either Triangle of Sadness or The Menu. It's also spooky as hell: How did Rian Johnson make a movie during the summer of 2021 that is a pitch-perfect allegory for last week's Elon Musk headlines?

12 Angry Men was an Election Day choice, watched with my 14-year-old. I've seen this movie countless times, and of course it exists as a veneration of American rational justice and a warning about how that justice is alarmingly fragile. But this viewing is the first time I've felt that the movie's primary value might be in laying bare the channel that exists between white American masculinity and ingrained bigotry. There’s an unintended value, too, in Argentina, 1985, a courtroom drama about the prosecutors tasked with bringing to justice the civil and military leaders who kidnappe

I can't explain why I've never seen Valley Girl until now, since it's totally the kind of thing I would have had on repeat as a teen in the mid '80s, rotating between VHS tapes of Better Off Dead and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It arrived on the scene just as the obsession with all things Valley was winding down--that national fever was grody to the max, fer shure--but it was just in time to capture the era's airy, adorkable don't-take-it-too-seriously vibe. Fittingly, Cage's character is way too earnest to really register as an outsider punk; he's basically a heartsick romantic with awesome

Clerks III feels like an artist lost inside his own preoccupations; these days, the only subject that seems to interest Kevin Smith is his own past as a filmmaker. How many layers of meta can Smith stack into one movie? That’s probably a question for his therapist, especially given how Clerks III expresses how losing your edge to nostalgia, and converting your youthful cynicism into middle-aged generosity, betrays a deep-seated fear of mortality. The movie is by a wide margin the softest, most heartfelt entry in the series and perhaps the entire View Askew universe, which is not to say it’s a

Rob Zombie's spin on The Munsters is far more watchable than its noxious trailer. He aims for a quirky brew of satire, cracked-mirror sitcom, and affectionate pastiche that takes a while to coagulate. I’m not sure it ever reaches “good,” but there’s no doubt it’s a personal, peculiar work that sometimes feels like the best possible movie adaptation of your neighbor's cheesiest Halloween yard decorations.

This morning I revisited Halloween Kills (2021) as a refresher prior to Halloween Ends, and I responded much more favorably, largely because this time I was better able to separate the movie's minor achievements from its major ambitions. David Gordon Green's approach to the franchise has obvious merits--smart casting, superior performances, skillful mise-en-scene--that have made Michael Myers genuinely scary for the first time since 1978. (For me, Rob Zombie's Michael was interesting, but not scary.) Yet Green also asks his entries to be judged by a loftier measure than whether it