Candyman Review Nia Dacosta S Brutal Sequel About Legacy Of Trauma

A working knowledge of Rose’s film, itself adapted from a Clive Barker short story that Rose cleverly moved from the UK to Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects, isn’t necessary to enjoy DaCosta’s film, but audiences who grew up (rightfully) afraid of men with hooks for hands and knowing never to say “Candyman” five times in front of a mirror will surely have a deeper appreciation of this new version. Stories, after all, stick with us, especially the scary ones, and that’s something DaCosta and co-writers Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld keenly understand....

December 30, 2022 · 5 min · 966 words · Andrew Short

Clouds Review Disney Plus Music Biopic Floats Above Others Like It

But it only takes a few minutes to realize that “Clouds” isn’t just another honeyed and ham-fisted piece of evangelical propaganda — even if the likes of “I Can Only Imagine” and “I Still Believe” made canny bids for mainstream success by hiding their full religiosity until the very end. If Baldoni’s sometimes moving and often graceful Disney+ debut can be described as “faith-based” — a big “if” for a filmmaker whose directing work has always evinced a single-minded yet decidedly secular interest in the lessons we can learn from young people at the end of their lives — the faith in which it’s based is found here on Earth, and not floating in the skies above....

December 30, 2022 · 5 min · 1016 words · Gregory Ramirez

Copshop Review An Anticlimactic Gerad Butler Frank Grillo Showdown

Butler and Grillo seem to be forging a path for themselves in old-school-style action movies that indulge in a bearish brand of masculinity, even as well-paid superhero movie/TV roles with franchise possibilities become increasingly available to almost any actor with name recognition. On paper, a film that pits them against each other as rival thugs would hopefully be at least entertaining. But “Copshop” co-writer/director Joe Carnahan just won’t let his headliners be great....

December 30, 2022 · 6 min · 1209 words · John Sanders

Cowboy Bebop Review Netflix S Riff On The Anime Classic Is A Disaster

On the one hand, Shinichirō Watanabe’s epochal 1998 anime series just begs to be remixed, inverted, and maybe even chopped and screwed. An impossibly cool retro-futuristic western space-noir that blasted hyperspace gateways between its various genres with all the exuberance of Yoko Kanno’s freeform jazz soundtrack — and forever galvanized a more global audience for its entire medium along the way — Watanabe’s stir-fry serial about a motley crew of interstellar bounty hunters doesn’t only endure as a masterpiece of pop art mish-mash, the original “Cowboy Bebop” also lingers with fans as a bittersweet ode to the mad scramble of their own existence....

December 30, 2022 · 13 min · 2674 words · David West

Crows Are White Review A Winning Documentary About Love And Religion

On the one hand, there’s no denying that Nadeem was lying to his Pakistani parents for a long time before he began to work on this project (which would take almost seven years to complete), just as there’s no denying that we ultimately see him find the courage required to tell them the truth. On the other hand, Nadeem’s film makes it hard not to be skeptical about how he got from A to B....

December 30, 2022 · 5 min · 906 words · Tony Harris

Emergency Review Injects The College Comedy With Realistic Tension

The great thing about “Emergency” — a satirical college comedy from “R#J” director Carey Williams — is its skillful balance between laughs and nerves, which it centers not only in equal measure, but often at the same time and without compromising either one. A tale of two Black college seniors, Sean (R.J. Cyler) and Kunle (Donald Elise Watkins), at the mostly white Buchanan University, the film begins with a grand plan for a legendary night of party-hopping (aptly named “The Legendary Tour”) before the duo graduates....

December 30, 2022 · 6 min · 1119 words · John Rice

Ethan Hawke Shares Story On The Mission Of Before Midnight Watch

In an interview with Hawke about his work on Showtime’s “The Good Lord Bird,” the multi-hypenate took time to discuss a moment while filming “Before Midnight.” He recalls how a camera operator approached him, revealing how upset he was about Hawke’s character, Jesse, checking out a beautiful young woman. According to Hawke, the camera operator believed “Jesse wouldn’t do that.” When Hawke asked him why, the cameraman responded that Jesse’s love for Celine (Julie Delpy) was so strong that he wouldn’t dare consider another person like that, equating it to Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack checking out a woman on the Titanic....

December 30, 2022 · 3 min · 427 words · Heather Cole
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