Author Archives: philipbrasor

Review: Thunder Road

Posted on June 24, 2020 by philipbrasor

Jim Cummings’ debut feature comes across as a piece of performance art extended beyond its original parameters, and surprisingly it works at that level consistently throughout its 90 minutes. Extrapolated from an award-winning short subject that has been reconstituted as … Continue reading →

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Review: The Current War

Posted on June 21, 2020 by philipbrasor

As laser-focused historical movies go, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s take on the rivalry between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse over who would build the first electricity grid in the U.S. has an immediately appealing hook in that electricity is something we take … Continue reading →

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Review: House of Hummingbird

Posted on June 20, 2020 by philipbrasor

In a year when world movie fans finally woke up to the consistent brilliance of Korean cinema through the vehicle of Parasite, it should probably be noted that in South Korea itself the movie that vied with Parasite in 2019 … Continue reading →

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Review: Adrift

Posted on June 19, 2020 by philipbrasor

Romantic melodramas adapted from real-life incidents can often feel doubly phony, since the viewer’s consciosness that these things really happened makes the contrivances feel all the more stagey. Adrift, which is adapted from a memoir by Tami Oldham, has a … Continue reading →

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Review: Luce

Posted on June 18, 2020 by philipbrasor

Julius Onah’s 2019 American film, based on a play by J.C. Lee (who wrote the screenplay with Onah), proves, if anything, that Hollywood and its lesser lights are not afraid to address thorny issues for the sake of provocation. Luce, … Continue reading →

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Review: Vox Lux

Posted on June 17, 2020 by philipbrasor

Caveat to Sia fans: Don’t go see Vox Lux just because you want to hear your idol’s compositions. The movie does end with an extended concert sequence featuring several Sia songs written expressly for the movie, and they’re not bad, … Continue reading →

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Review: The Dead Don’t Die

Posted on June 16, 2020 by philipbrasor

Without a doubt, zombies are the prime pop culture metaphor of our age, distilling the idea of a population zapped out on consumerism down to deadeyed cannibalism. Jim Jarmusch’s comedy is clearly in on the joke and while portions zip … Continue reading →

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Review: Harriet

Posted on June 15, 2020 by philipbrasor

A biopic of Harriet Tubman is way overdue, though one could make the argument that the timing of Kasi Lemmons’ movie takes full advantage of the prevailing public sentiment of Black Americans at the moment. When the movie was released … Continue reading →

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Media Mix, June 14, 2020

Posted on June 14, 2020 by philipbrasor

Here’s this week’s Media Mix about the Kurokawa mahjong scandal and how the press gets information through access to government officials. Most of the column was about the reporter’s side of the transaction, but, of course, officials have their own … Continue reading →

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Review: Young Ahmed

Posted on June 13, 2020 by philipbrasor

You have to hand it to Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, the Belgian filmmaking brothers whose dramas make difficult socioeconomic issues relatable on a personal level. Despite the dozens of awards they’ve received and a reputation for unsentimentalized realism that even … Continue reading →

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