Category Archives: Movies

Review: Spencer

Posted on October 14, 2022 by philipbrasor

Just as he did with his 2017 portrait of Jackie Onassis, director Pablo Larrain fixes his gaze on another famous female partner of an important man, Diana Spencer (Kristen Stewart), during a specific period of his subject’s life. In Onassis’s … Continue reading →

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Busan International Film Festival, Oct. 11, 2022

Posted on October 11, 2022 by philipbrasor

A friend attended the public screening of Decision to Leave at the Sohyang Theater yesterday morning and said that the print they showed had no English subtitles. Consequently, almost all the non-Korean members of the audience just walked out after … Continue reading →

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Busan International Film Festival, Oct. 9, 2022

Posted on October 9, 2022 by philipbrasor

The weather has been perfect so far—sunny and cool, though a bit windy. Today it is supposed to rain, which means I have to carry an umbrella. I’m already carrying too much. Yesterday, I expanded a bit beyond Korean cinema. … Continue reading →

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Review: The Bad Guys

Posted on October 7, 2022 by philipbrasor

Dreamworks reportedly hopes to develop this animated feature into a franchise, but so much of it is pastiche that it might be difficult to pass off as original. The premise is that the heroes are not only “bad guys” in … Continue reading →

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Review: Support the Girls

Posted on October 5, 2022 by philipbrasor

Movies, especially American movies, love characters who are ground down by the effort to just get by, and usually they are allowed some measure of triumph. Andrew Bujalski’s Support the Girls, which is set in a Hooters-type family restaurant in … Continue reading →

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Review: Downton Abbey: A New Era

Posted on September 30, 2022 by philipbrasor

Having jumped ship on the beloved British series around the time Dan Stevens left, I assumed this movie installment would be an entirely self-contained episode with no need to brush up on what happened in those latter seasons I missed. … Continue reading →

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Review: The Princess

Posted on September 29, 2022 by philipbrasor

Twenty-five years after she perished in a car crash while fleeing paparazzi in Paris, Princess Diana’s overstuffed legacy hardly needs another cinematic boost (that biopic with Kristen Stewart opens in Japan next month), but this HBO documentary does a pretty … Continue reading →

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Review: The Dry

Posted on September 25, 2022 by philipbrasor

The awkward title of this mystery, based on a best-selling novel, describes a small town in rural Australia that has been suffering through a drought for some time. The intent seems to be to prepare an environment of discomfort and … Continue reading →

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Review: The Monopoly of Violence/Babi Yar. Context

Posted on September 24, 2022 by philipbrasor

For those of us who don’t live in France or, for that matter, the EU, the so-called Yellow Vest Movement, in which mostly working people and far-left and far-right elements opposed to Emmanuel Macron’s neoliberal policies clashed violently with police … Continue reading →

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Review: Lamb

Posted on September 23, 2022 by philipbrasor

Though it does contain a cosmic joke that’s shockingly funny if not particularly original, Icelandic director Valdimar Johannsson’s Lamb seems stuck for most of its running time in narrative limbo. Atmospherically creepy and purposely bizarre, its milieu is nevertheless so … Continue reading →

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