Category Archives: Movies

Review: Bleeding Love and Scrapper

Posted on July 5, 2024 by philipbrasor

Someday, maybe soon, there is bound to be a special section on Prime Video or even the Criterion Channel dedicated to movies starring real-life parent-offspring acting teams ideally playing parents and offspring. Though Ethan Hawke has directed his daughter Maya, … Continue reading →

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Review: Ferrari

Posted on July 4, 2024 by philipbrasor

No pun intended, but Michael Mann has always been a man’s director. His protagonists deal in conflicts that seem particularly masculine in nature, which is why, I suspect, he likes stories set in a past where gender distinctions were more … Continue reading →

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Review: The Moon

Posted on July 3, 2024 by philipbrasor

Last year, this big-budget production was the whipping boy of the failed post-pandemic Korean box office, whose unexpectedly low numbers were initially blamed on a movie-going public still stuck on streaming. Actually, the crappy performance of The Moon, the flagship … Continue reading →

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Review: Walk Up

Posted on June 28, 2024 by philipbrasor

Hong Sangsoo’s newest Japan theatrical release could have been titled Quitting, just like Zhang Yang’s criminally overlooked 2001 feature about an actor on the verge of actually cracking up. It’s one of the few Hong movies of recent memory where … Continue reading →

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Review: Bad Boys: Ride or Die and The Watchers

Posted on June 21, 2024 by philipbrasor

Since the last installment in this bombastic comedy-action franchise practically determined that its two heroes, the buddy cop team of Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) and Mike Lowery (Will Smith), were on the retirement track, this fourth episode feels kind of … Continue reading →

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Review: The Holdovers

Posted on June 20, 2024 by philipbrasor

Though he’s made a number of movies I don’t like much—and I couldn’t get past the first episode of Billions—Paul Giamatti for me is maybe the most pleasurable American film actor to watch. He never resorts to realism, and, in … Continue reading →

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Review: One Life

Posted on June 19, 2024 by philipbrasor

The unsung historical hero is irresistible, though it takes a discerning interpreter to make such a subject both relevant and moving to sensibilities that have developed in the meantime. Spielberg set the template with Schindler’s List by going big in … Continue reading →

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Review: Louder Than You Think: A Lo-Fi History of Gary Young & Pavement

Posted on June 15, 2024 by philipbrasor

Here’s a documentary that develops its thesis on several levels of lowered expectations, as if the director, Jed I. Rosenberg, felt he had to hedge his bets owing to the central focus of attention, Gary Young, the first drummer for … Continue reading →

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Review: How to Blow Up a Pipeline

Posted on June 14, 2024 by philipbrasor

Some movies are so carefully conceived and worked out that they can feel contrived due to their meticulous attention to detail. The script of this eco-thriller by director Daniel Goldhaber, based on a manifesto by Andreas Malm, brings together a … Continue reading →

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Review: IF

Posted on June 13, 2024 by philipbrasor

Though the title of this family fantasy stands for “imaginary friends,” the purport of the conditional conjunction lends the film a wistful character that suits its dramatic purposes more adequately. By rights, the plot is a downer. Twelve-year-old Bea (Cailey … Continue reading →

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