I found Emilia Pérez difficult to write about. Why? Jacques Audiard is not part of either the trans or Mexican communities. And both groups have had some very serious criticisms over Audiard’s often trope-ish and out-dated presentation of his subjects.…

With Heretic, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods challenge what we believe. Even though the film very specifically tackles organized religion and faith, Mr. Reed’s interrogation of Sisters Barnes and Paxton can apply far more broadly. Once Heretic ends, you should…

Black Swan explained I think we can all agree that when you first watch Black Swan the immediate questions you have are “How much was real? What was real? Why was Nina seeing what she saw?” There’s some good news and…

Anora is a different kind of coming of age story. It's about waking up from the American dream in order to s

Saturday Night is less a story and more a moment captured in time. And even though it’s about the first episode of Saturday Night Live, it feels representative of the show as a whole. As if Jason Reitman wanted to…

Smile 2 reminds people that celebrities often have people who support them as products but not as people

The end of Possession can leave you at a complete loss, asking yourself, “What did I just watch?” But don’t give up hope! Possession provides inroads that give us the context necessary to piece together what’s going on. I’m excited…

The ending of Terrifier 3 is brutal. Like…really brutal. Seemingly, Sienna is left with nothing. So it’s easy to think of the ending as a complete downer, as a pessimistic look at how life is unwinnable. But, and I know…

We Live in Time is a sad one, huh? For nearly two hours, it uses every trick in the book to make us care about Almut and Tobias. Not just as a couple but as individuals. We root for them,…

The Silence of the Lambs is, for the most part, a pretty straightforward movie. But it does have two bits of subtext I think are pretty cool. The first has to do with time. And the second with the male…

The Others is from this post-Sixth Sense and Fight Club era where psychological thrillers with twists were at a premium. From 2000-2008, before the new Superhero Era really kicked off, you had an avalanche of twist-based films. Donnie Darko, Memento,…