THE INVITE was titillatingly teased (for what felt like years) as a sex comedy of manners, a will-they-or-won’t-they about two couples of a certain age circling each other in an apartment brought uncomfortably close by erotic tension. And while it certainly is that, one of the many pleasant surprises it holds — and a testament […]
Screens
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Schnabel’s Inferno
IN THE HAND OF DANTE. It can be reflexive — instinctive, even — when confronted with a grand-to-grandiose work, especially one that spans genres as quickly as it does centuries, to dismiss it as muddled, misguided or unaware of its own intentions. But this reaction dismisses the work’s substance, the meaning that compels the artist […]
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Micro Hustlers
In news that’s not really news, Jackass is quite old and the cinema branch of DC has issued a sputtering salvo in the pointless, unwinnable, poorly timed war with Marvel. In the case of the former, Jackass: Best and Last would appear to be a pragmatic coda, a sort of clip-show send-off from a group […]
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“Obsession” is a Hard Watch, Hard Recommend
OBSESSION. Stephen King once wrote that many of his best stories started with a “What if?” What if vampires invaded a small New England village? What if a bullied high school girl turned out to have supernatural powers? What if the person you love suddenly loves you back, and that turns out to be the […]
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Master Classes
DISCLOSURE DAY. When I last wrote or even thought critically about Steven Spielberg (The Fabelmans, 2022), I recalled my adolescent resistance to his work, realizing in hindsight that my affinity for snark and edginess (it was the 1990s) had veiled my eyes, or at least inured me, to the integrity and mastery underpinning all of […]
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“Tow” Might Be Good for You
TOW. Is a judicial system, ostensibly built to protect the citizenry but susceptible to the manipulations of commerce and greed, inherently cynical? Possibly. Is a movie, replete with marketable stars, that explores an individual’s struggle against such a corruptible system, also cynical? Hopefully not. What about the critic who, in the face of such an […]
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‘Backrooms’ Breaks Out of the Internet
BACKROOMS. In order to talk about Backrooms (2026), A24’s newest psychological horror directed by breakout filmmaker Kane Parsons and based off his cult YouTube series, it is important to take a few steps back to look at the veryinternet-based origins of this film’s unsettling landscape. The film’s endless mono-yellow passages and torturous fluorescent light invoking […]
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Folk Horror Summer
PASSENGER. Sunken in our seats after the now usual set of car commercials that precede the previews, the trailer for Passenger was a welcome jolt. A likely pair of dudes pull over on a dark backroad for a potty break that escalates to creepy disappearance, sudden shock, gore, specter-sighting and a cracking jump scare. It boded […]
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The Limits of Imitation
IN THE GREY. Guy Ritchie has, for almost 30 years now, traded on his charming, distinctly British brand of cleverness as heavily as anybody in the movie business. In the early days — Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), Snatch (2000) — when so many of us were caught up so willingly in the […]
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‘Outcome’ and ‘Apex’ Almost Summit
OUTCOME. Jonah Hill’s second scripted feature — following Mid90s (2018), the documentary Stutz (2022) and number of music videos and episodes of television — might be seen as a response to the erosion of his public image after the leaking of some controlling, sexist text messages to his former girlfriend. Obviously, I can’t say that […]
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‘Michael’ is Bad
MICHAEL struggles to be genuine amid the soaring vocals and thrilling moves of a rising Jackson. Action director Antoine Fuqua, best known for the critically acclaimed crime thriller Training Day, turns a new leaf into the biopic genre as he attempts to tell a story about a brief time in the life of Michael Jackson. […]
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Beneath the Surface
NORMAL boasts more than enough bona fides to excite a certain kind of audience (me): a script by creator of John Wick (2014) Derek Kolstad, again collaborating with star Bob Odenkirk (Nobody, 2021); Ben Wheatley directing; the promise of small-town, Main Street gunplay. Any one of which should be sufficient to assure a good time […]