Author Archives: philipbrasor

Review: Meg 2: The Trench

Posted on August 23, 2023 by philipbrasor

The enduring commercial viability of shark movies, almost fifty years after Jaws, mirrors the enduring commercial viability of zombie flicks, though no one, as far as I know, has ever compared the two. As terrifying adversaries go, both sharks and … Continue reading →

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Review: The Wolf House

Posted on August 19, 2023 by philipbrasor

Presented as an old film restored by the Chilean directors/animators Joaquin Cociña and Cristóbal León about a German colony with a very bad reputation, The Wolf House is a disarming excavation of proto-fascist tropes served up as surreal art. Based … Continue reading →

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Review: Crimes of the Future

Posted on August 17, 2023 by philipbrasor

David Cronenberg’s return to “body horror,” a genre he invented, after two decades of comparatively conventional, though by no means less disturbing, dramas has the same title as one of his earliest movies, so at first I wondered if he … Continue reading →

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Review: QT8-The First Eight

Posted on August 12, 2023 by philipbrasor

Though not strictly a hagiography, this thorough explication of the films that Quentin Tarantino made under the auspices of Harvey Weinstein presents America’s most celebrated auteur of the last three decades as a complete success on his own terms and … Continue reading →

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Review: Barbie

Posted on August 11, 2023 by philipbrasor

Greta Gerwig’s very popular movie, written with her life partner and fellow filmmaker Noah Baumbach, isn’t the first one to center on a toy or, for that matter, a very recognizable toy. Usually, however, the toy is a brand name … Continue reading →

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Review: Return to Seoul

Posted on August 10, 2023 by philipbrasor

What makes Cambodian-French director Davy Chou’s movie about a young French woman recklessly discovering her Korean heritage compelling is how attuned it is to not only to the character’s foibles, but how those foibles determine the purpose of her quest, … Continue reading →

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Review: The Survivor

Posted on August 9, 2023 by philipbrasor

Barry Levinson’s retelling of the story of Harry Haft (Ben Foster), a Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz by allowing himself to be used for entertainment purposes as a boxer, is a fairly conventional movie in that it plays on the … Continue reading →

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Review: Myanmar Diaries

Posted on August 5, 2023 by philipbrasor

There are no credits at the beginning or at the end of this collection of short videos made by amateur and professional filmmakers in the aftermath of the coup in Myanmar that took place February 1, 2021. Obviously, they would … Continue reading →

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Review: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

Posted on August 4, 2023 by philipbrasor

For what it’s really worth, this is the first Transformers movie I’ve seen that I found entertaining. (I didn’t see the Bumblebee offshoot, which a lot of people liked.) Don’t get me wrong, I’m not categorically against movies about trademarked … Continue reading →

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Review: The Inspection

Posted on August 3, 2023 by philipbrasor

Given that this first feature by director Elegance Bratton is clearly autobiographical to a certain extent, it’s surprising how little distinctive detail it offers into the mind of a young gay Black man who decides to join the Marines as … Continue reading →

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