Category Archives: Movies

Review: Sasquatch Sunset

Posted on May 23, 2025 by philipbrasor

As a comedy, this imagined recreation of what a family of the mythical Bigfoot species might do over the course of four seasons places its bets for laughs on behavior that we associate with the ruder persuasion of humanity. The … Continue reading →

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Review: The Substance

Posted on May 16, 2025 by philipbrasor

Though much has already been written about Coralie Fargeat’s body horror fantasia about the pitfalls of female self-esteem, not enough of the discussion has focused on Dennis Quaid’s performance as a TV producer named Harvey. Though Quaid’s male chauvinist caricature … Continue reading →

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Review: The Girl with the Needle and Nosferatu

Posted on May 14, 2025 by philipbrasor

As a movie addressing the psychological torment that can accompany and follow the act of childbirth, Denmark’s most recent contender for an international feature Oscar doesn’t hold anything back, but because it’s set in a time and place that feels … Continue reading →

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Review: Queer and Lee

Posted on May 9, 2025 by philipbrasor

Daniel Craig doesn’t look anything like William S. Burroughs, the Beat Generation author whose autobiographical novel is the source for Luca Guadagnino’s sweaty drama, but he does attempt to mimic Burroughs’ laconic Midwestern drone, albeit with a slight lisp. The … Continue reading →

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Review: Caught by the Tides

Posted on May 8, 2025 by philipbrasor

Made during the pandemic, Jia Zhangke’s latest is a clever collage of used and unused footage from previous features, as well as new footage that was shot under strict circumstances. The result is a film that attempts to review the … Continue reading →

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Review: Paddington in Peru

Posted on May 7, 2025 by philipbrasor

It would be difficult to outdo Paddington 2 for comic inventiveness, especially since the third installment of the series doesn’t feature Hugh Grant (spoiler: he shows up in a brief post-credits bit) or Sally Hawkins, who has so far played … Continue reading →

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Review: Cesium Fallout

Posted on May 2, 2025 by philipbrasor

It says something about the ambitions behind China/Hong Kong’s most recent developments as a commercial movie power that this star-studded actioner is being promoted as the territory’s first “radiation disaster blockbuster,” as if it were a kind of requisite milestone … Continue reading →

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Review: Youth (Hard Times) and Youth (Homecoming)

Posted on April 26, 2025 by philipbrasor

Earlier this week, in a review for another movie, I wrote that Chinese fiction films rarely tackle work as a central theme. In a sense, Wang Bing’s monumental three-part documentary, Youth, says probably everything that needs to be said about … Continue reading →

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Review: The Beast and It’s Not Me

Posted on April 25, 2025 by philipbrasor

Though Bertrand Bonello only borrows part of the title and the basic dramatic premise of Henry James’ 1903 novella The Beast in the Jungle, in which many literary experts believe the author was describing his own personal fear of intimacy, … Continue reading →

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Review: Heretic

Posted on April 24, 2025 by philipbrasor

Hugh Grant further solidifies his post-rom-com resurgence as the extremely creepy Mr. Reed in this fairly intellectual horror movie that puts religious belief on trial. Though not particularly scary as modern-day horror movies go, there’s enough substance in the elaborate … Continue reading →

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