Author Archives: philipbrasor

Review: Pompei: Below the Clouds and I Was a Teenage Sex Pistol

Posted on October 2, 2026 by philipbrasor

Documentary filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi struck paydirt when he found a middle-aged female archaeologist to comment on her work in a storehouse for artifacts unearthed during digs of the legendary city of Pompei, which was buried under lava and ash after … Continue reading →

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Review: Disclosure Day

Posted on October 1, 2026 by philipbrasor

It was certainly inevitable that Steven Spielberg, after the most enviably productive career of any American film director in history, would try to summarize that career in various ways as he approached his 80s. His last movie was the highly … Continue reading →

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Review: Heart of the Beast and Hen

Posted on September 25, 2026 by philipbrasor

Loyal dog movies and TV shows were once a staple of American entertainment, but if Heart of the Beast feels too much like a throwback it tries to make up for its anachronistic vibe by centering the central human-animal relationship … Continue reading →

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Review: Broken Voices

Posted on September 19, 2026 by philipbrasor

Ondřej Provazník’s Broken Voices was inspired by a real life scandal surrounding the Prague-based children’s choir Bambini di Praga. In 2008, the choir’s leader, Bohumil Kulínský, was arrested for having sexually abused two dozen girls in the ensemble over the … Continue reading →

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Review: If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Posted on September 18, 2026 by philipbrasor

Only a few seconds into this harrowing black comedy by Mary Bronstein, the protagonist, a fortyish Long Island mother named Linda (Rose Byrne), says to her complaining young daughter, “I’m allowed to be sad,” a massive understatement that will prove … Continue reading →

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Review: The Odyssey and Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People?

Posted on September 11, 2026 by philipbrasor

At this point, it seems impossible to talk about Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey without addressing his faithfulness—or lack of it—to the original text, which is more than 3,000 years old. It’s an issue I can’t rightly address since I don’t … Continue reading →

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Review: Bob Trevino Likes It and Linka Linka

Posted on September 10, 2026 by philipbrasor

One of the nicer touches in Tracie Laymon’s reportedly semi-autobiographical movie, Bob Trevino Likes It, is the perpetually cracked screen on the cell phone used by the protagonist, Lily Trevino (Barbara Ferreira). As the title suggests, Lily spends an awful … Continue reading →

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Review: Starve Acre

Posted on September 9, 2026 by philipbrasor

Folk horror meets generational family trauma in this confusingly intense exercise in sophisticated campfire ghost storytelling. It’s the bleak 1970s in Yorkshire, England, where academically embattled archaeologist Richard (Matt Smith) has moved his wife, Juliette (Morfydd Clark), and possibly schizophrenic … Continue reading →

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Review: Numakage Public Pool

Posted on September 5, 2026 by philipbrasor

Frederick Wiseman, who died in February, was not only America’s greatest documentary filmmaker, but an anthropologist of rare insight. Though he is mainly famous for perfecting the so-called fly-on-the-wall observational doc, it was his wide-ranging approach to his institutional subjects … Continue reading →

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Review: The Voice of Hind Rajab and 2000 Meters to Andriivka

Posted on September 4, 2026 by philipbrasor

Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania has already proven herself to be an imaginative creator of documentaries with Four Daughters, a film in which she showed the real-life subjects of her story coaching actors who would play them in recreations of … Continue reading →

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