Flow animates a tragic, yet hopeful tale filled with expressive, cute, and resilient animals that show more character growth than in the film’s verbal contemporaries. Flow is a gorgeous beacon of hope for what animation continues to be capable of.
All in Movie Review
"A Real Pain" Wonderfully Depicts the Beautiful Messiness of Bonding Through Grief
Few movies explore this experience as succinctly and genuinely as A Real Pain. Through a script that masterfully balances chaotic discomfort and quietude, A Real Pain makes for one of the best film experiences of the year.
"Heretic" Review: Inventive Horror Brilliantly Investigates Religion
Heretic is a supremely smart, hilarious, and disturbing movie that masterfully balances emotion, logic, and skepticism to craft a story that is sure to inspire broader, deeper conversations about faith and its relationship with control among its audience.
"Exhibiting Forgiveness" Review: Exceptional Emotional Examination of Trauma, Hatred, and Forgiving without Forgetting
Exhibiting Forgiveness is an emotional adventure that smartly and gracefully investigates how the broken relationships of the past can inform the new relationships we build in the future. This film excellently reveals information to its audience in a way that humanizes the very real pain experienced and brought about by its characters in honest, profound way.
"Look Back" Review: A Bittersweet Masterpiece about the Shifting Natures of Friendship and Artistry
Look Back is a tender, heartfelt exploration of how much can change in what feels like a short amount of time. So many aspects of our lives shift throughout time. Look Back is an excellent, bittersweet exploration of these shifts and how they inform the person we become.
"A Different Man" Review: A Thoughtful if Flawed Commentary on Individuality
A Different Man is a film ultimately concerned with our relationship with individuality and the comparisons we make with others through highlighting two characters' opposite relationships with their attitude towards the world and their disabilities.
"The Wild Robot" Review: A Simple, yet Heartful Adventure about Parenthood and Belonging
Beyond providing a fun adventure with stellar and stylish animation, The Wild Robot concerns itself with providing believable characters that overcome believable obstacles that much of its audience, regardless of age, will connect with.
"The Substance" Review: Modern Body Horror Classic Explores Self-Loathing and the Toxicity of Beauty Standards
Theming is at the very core of The Substance. This is a film that is ultimately concerned with having a conversation with its audience - a conversation about what leads people to develop ideas that cause them to hate themselves and what they look like.
"Strange Darling" Review: A Modern Classic Thriller that Brilliantly Deceives its Audience
Through intelligent framing and using the audiences familiarity with the film’s genre against them, Strange Darling subverts and weaponizes audience expectations, making them just as much of a victim as the many characters who get bested in the film.
"Sing Sing" Review: An Emphatically Human Film about Hope, Despair, and the Necessity of Expression
Sing Sing stands far above its contemporaries due to its uniquely authentic and intellectual approach to its story, performances, and themes about hope, humanity, and integrity. This film respects those whose story this film is based on while also being a story full of heart and humanity that its depicted inmates share.
"Dìdi" Review: A Brilliant, Genuine Examination of Late 2000s Angst and Belonging
Dìdi is a special film thanks to its dedication to authenticity. [The film] authentically captures the struggle of becoming emotionally intelligent in a way that everyone can understand - especially those that also grew up in an era where technology and the internet grew alongside us.
"The Art of Self-Defense" Review: A Profound Dissection of Masculinity and Cyclical Violence
Through its dark humor and brilliantly realized characters, The Art of Self-Defense manages to say a lot about violence and masculinity without every coming across as full of itself or preachy. Self-Defense is a film that very much understands what it is and the kind of story it’s trying to tell, and doesn’t attempt to be anything that it isn’t. What results is a film that is tightly focused, funny, and intelligent.
Why "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" Was the Best Animated Film of 2018
What makes Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse so special to me is that a begets its audience to rethink what animation is capable of. This film could have easily adopted a live-action counterpart, or used a more traditional CG art style - but it didn’t. Why was this? Why, in this instance, did Sony choose to take a riskier and more stylistic approach when a safer, more often-used presentation would have been easier (and likely more profitable)? The answer to that…is passion.
"Widows" and the Decay of Love | Movie Review
Widows - while certainly having some excellently realized commentary on modern western culture and the increasing spread of apathy - doesn’t manage to do much you haven’t seen before in a heist film […] It’s certainly flawed, but it’s clear that this film was a product of smart and lovingly-crafted writing and direction, which alone makes it worth a watch.
"Beautiful Boy" Review | An Intimate Screenshot of Family and Surviving Turmoil
Beautiful Boy creates a narrative experience that was intimate in a way that few other films are able to replicate. This film provides a refreshing and insightful look into the extent to which addiction affects family. More than anything, though, Beautiful Boy dares to show the lengths we’re willing to go to save those we care about, even when we know that it very well may be for nothing.
"mid90s" Review | An Insightful Examination of a Flawed Era and Culture
mid90s is a dense, intriguing film that analyzes the extent to which a generation was impacted by their surroundings in a flawed era and culture. […] Through powerful writing, great performances, and a commentary about a generation that hasn’t had many stories told about it (yet), mid90s is an examination well worth paying attention to.
"First Man" Review | Chazelle's Weakest Film Still Shines
First Man is an intriguing exploration of Neil Armstrong’s personal journey masked underneath his more public one that history has made everyone familiar with. While it’s perhaps Damien Chazelle’s weakest feature film, First Man still manages to impress and inspire awe.
"Venom" Review | The Shackles of Corporate Mediocrity
With a screenplay that feels awkward and tonally confused, performances that either feel miscast or missing strong characterization, and a structure that feels both formulaic and dated, Venom is a corporate, mediocre mess. Given the plethora of comic-book-to-film adaptations we’ve seen this decade, there are many, many better ways to spend your time if you’re looking for an enjoyable comic book adaptation.
"A Star is Born (2018)" Review | An Emotional, Electric Experience
A Star is Born leaves a significant emotional impact to its audience, and it’s delivered in a tightly edited film with a screenplay that both trusts the performances of its actors and the intelligence of its audience. […] Whether you enjoy romances or find the genre too cliché-filled, A Star is Born is a film that simply can’t be missed.
"The House with a Clock in Its Walls" Review | Imagination and Whimsy Overshadowed by Poor Writing
Clock in Its Walls is an admirably imaginative and heartfelt film with a tragically underdeveloped screenplay, making for a film that, while having a strong core, isn’t a necessity for fans of the genre.