Category Archives: Movies

Review: El Pepe – A Supreme Life

Posted on March 26, 2020 by philipbrasor

There’s something wonderfully encouraging about Emir Kusturica’s filmic fascination with Latin America. The Serbian director’s reputation as a polymath who makes a decent if not outstanding living as a filmmaker, writer, and musician is enhanced enormously by his tendency to … Continue reading →

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Review: Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Posted on March 20, 2020 by philipbrasor

Though I was initially interested in reading Thomas Piketty’s big bestseller about income inequality as a permanently expanding fixture of economic life, I eventually concluded that the book would probably teach me little. Anyone with a decent grounding in social … Continue reading →

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Review: Columbus

Posted on March 13, 2020 by philipbrasor

The title city, a leafy Midwestern exurb that is located in Indiana, not Ohio, is an interesting choice for a place where the two main characters find themselves stuck. The town’s main attraction is its full line of modernist architecture, … Continue reading →

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Review: All Is True

Posted on March 11, 2020 by philipbrasor

It was only a matter of time before Kenneth Branagh, the still-living film actor most popularly identified with Shakespeare, portrayed the Bard himself on screen, and for what it’s worth and despite the stupid schnozz, there’s something heartening and even … Continue reading →

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Media Mix, March 8, 2020

Posted on March 8, 2020 by philipbrasor

Here’s this week’s Media Mix about Yoko Tajima. It’s perhaps appropriate that the column is being published on International Women’s Day, though the timing of Tajima’s renaissance is completely coincidental. In truth, she never went away, and her semi-regular appearances … Continue reading →

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Review: Judy

Posted on March 5, 2020 by philipbrasor

Usually, I don’t comment on acting when I review a film, mainly because I expect professionalism from everyone involved and good acting should be a given. Normally the acting is good, so there’s no point in talking about it unless … Continue reading →

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Review: Long Day’s Journey Into Night

Posted on March 2, 2020 by philipbrasor

Critics have at long last realized that the development of Chinese art house cinema over the last decade has been deeply influenced by American and European film noir. The influence probably goes back further, and, for what it’s worth, film … Continue reading →

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Review: Les Miserables

Posted on February 29, 2020 by philipbrasor

As has already been pointed out, the title of Ladj Ly’s debut feature is a kind of piss-take on the classic Victor Hugo opus, a move that both provokes curiosity and confounds expectations. It is about “poor people” in the … Continue reading →

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Review: For Sama

Posted on February 28, 2020 by philipbrasor

Though it’s not vital to appreciating her achievement, Waad al-Kateab was not a trained filmmaker when she started recording her day-to-day existence in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo in 2012. At the time she was studying for a business … Continue reading →

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Review: Bombshell

Posted on February 22, 2020 by philipbrasor

Tongue-in-cheek title aside, there’s not a whole lot in Jay Roach’s takedown of Fox News that’s farcical. If anything, the movie is earnest, even sincere in the way it unloads on male toxicity in the media, but Roger Ailes is … Continue reading →

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