For three years, I have received an annual movie about the Tham Luang cave rescue. First, we had the experienced first responders recreating their efforts in Cave Rescue. Then, the team behind Free Solo made a documentary about the disaster with The Rescue. And now, the story receives the “Hollywood” treatment with Ron Howard’s Thirteen Lives. Despite my personal exhaustion with this story, I was excited to see how this latest adaptation measured up to…
After Yang chronicles the in-between of a family tragedy. Set in the not-so-distant future (similar to Spike Jonze’s Her), an assistive android named Yang (Justin H. Min, in one of this year’s strongest supporting roles) suddenly malfunctions. Yang’s assigned family are shaken up as they grasp for an action plan. The search for a satisfying resolution falls on the father, Jake (Colin Farrell), who slowly discovers more of Yang’s purpose as he shops around for repair…
One of the most exciting voices of contemporary cinema has hit that point in his career where he needs to make his first English language feature. Thankfully, unlike countless others before him, Yorgos Lanthimos managed to avoid the usual pitfalls of the “first English feature” and results in The Lobster, a film as weird and brilliant as his previous features Dogtooth and ALPS.
By: Addison Wylie There should be entertainment in watching something as expensive and clueless as Winter’s Tale foul up as bad as it does. To do so, there has to be peculiar performances or unusual story elements to keep us guiltily hooked. Winter’s Tale has these, but it’s empty core covers any unintentional laughs. It’s a film serviced by a writer/director who can’t fully comprehend the source material he’s adapting. Akiva Goldsman has been a producer on…
By: Addison Wylie There’s no other way to put it: Epic is uninteresting. It’s attractive, but very dry. Almost everything about it amounts to a sigh as the audience waits for Chris Wedge’s animation to go through the usual family friendly motions. I didn’t find the film’s eco-friendly message to be clamouring, but its ability to tell an inventive story is seriously lacking. Especially when the film is visually brimming with imagination. James V. Hart,…