Category Archives: Movies

Review: Carmine Street Guitars

Posted on August 10, 2019 by philipbrasor

As fly-on-the-wall documentaries go, Ron Mann’s small-scaled portrait of a venerable Greenwich Village guitar shop should make even Frederick Wiseman green with envy. Due to its location and hard won reputation, Carmine Street Guitars can expect quite a few celebrity … Continue reading →

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Review: Peterloo

Posted on August 8, 2019 by philipbrasor

As he approaches the twilight of his career, Mike Leigh, perhaps the best and certainly the most idiosyncratic of British filmmakers, has increasingly turned to history to explore his feelings about what it means to be English. His two most … Continue reading →

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Review: Welcome to Marwen

Posted on July 20, 2019 by philipbrasor

It’s easy to see why Robert Zemeckis was attracted to the true-life story of Mark Hogancamp. Zemeckis’s brief since the Back to the Future series has been fantasy that comments on who we are right now, “we” being invariably Americans. … Continue reading →

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Review: The Old Man & the Gun

Posted on July 12, 2019 by philipbrasor

David Lowery’s career so far has produced one of the weirdest bodies of work of any young director: the 70s pastiche Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, the surprisingly affecting family-friendly fantasy Pete’s Dragon, and the ambitious occult-psychological study A Ghost Story. His … Continue reading →

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Review: The Guardians

Posted on July 7, 2019 by philipbrasor

Xavier Beauvois takes an unusual approach to a war movie. Though he opens on a battlefield strewn with corpses during World War I, his film very rarely addresses the brute terror of warfare. Like Satyajit Ray’s memorable Distant Thunder, it … Continue reading →

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Review: The Sisters Brothers

Posted on July 6, 2019 by philipbrasor

The hitman movie hit a wall years ago, maybe as far back as Pulp Fiction, which billed itself as the last word on the sub-genre. Since then, it’s been variations on a theme, and the variations haven’t been varied enough … Continue reading →

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Review: Wildlife

Posted on July 5, 2019 by philipbrasor

Actor Paul Dano took on a lot when he decided to adapt Richard Ford’s 1990 novel as his directorial debut. Dano does not appear in the movie, and neither does his significant other and co-scenarist Zoe Kazan, but there’s something … Continue reading →

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Review: Girl

Posted on July 4, 2019 by philipbrasor

The movies are still conflicted when it comes to portraying LGBTQ individuals, not because the portraits are necessarily difficult to convey with sensitivity and honesty, but because the very act of representation is fraught. Heterosexual cisgender actors and actresses still … Continue reading →

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Review: Cold War

Posted on June 29, 2019 by philipbrasor

According to Thomas Wolfe, you can’t go home again, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn something in the attempt. I don’t know which country the 62-year-old Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski currently calls home—he left his native land for England … Continue reading →

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Review: Dark Phoenix

Posted on June 22, 2019 by philipbrasor

The flaw in the X-Men saga that outsiders can’t quite get past is the mutant pretense that is its whole reason for being. Though the idea of mutants being social outcasts despite their super powers and tendency to use them … Continue reading →

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