We see the film, not the cinema; cinema remains hidden within the film. Cinema is the Phantom of the Opera. A movement and a moment of transition, the Phantom fades away with each opera. It disappears and then reemerges in another, and another, and another, and yet another opera.
Ultimately the problem with The Bubble is that it plays everything for laughs to get around the audience’s defenses. But it comes off like a privileged white male thinking that ridiculing everyone else equally is the road to equality. And it’s not. And it's definitely not funny to pretend that it is.
The Gates, John Burr’s new thriller film, is a disturbingly realistic portrayal of three Black twenty-somethings - Derek (Mason Gooding), Kevin (Algee Smith), and Tyon (Keith Powers), as they accidentally take a wrong turn into a gated community that’s more like a modern-day sundown town. The three friends witness a variety of crimes in their new surroundings, including an attempted homicide and an attempted rape. As they attempt to alert the authorities and do the right thing, they are thwarted at every turn by the worst horror stories of American conservatism - racist white suburbanites, reckless gun violence, corrupt police, religious mania, and a megalomaniacal pastor.
The height of subversive horror cinema is Jennifer’s Body. No, I will never budge on that. Yes, Cabin in The Woods is funny, Scream is very well made, and the Scary Movie franchise is …. there. But nothing is quite as satisfying as watching the teenage succubus that is Jennifer Check rip apart boys. In the post #metoo era where the industry is far from changed, watching revenge flicks like these is probably one of the most cathartic experiences due to the slow-moving progress being made.
I was able to watch the gleefully mesmerizing Disney remake that was Robert Zemeckis’ Pinocchio. I was enthralled by Zemeckis’ iteration.
In The Women and the Murderer, directors Mona Achache and Patricia Tourancheau center women—the very demographic true crime is designed to appeal to.
Netflix’s recent "Enola Holmes 3" is a disappointing and confusing entry in the stellar "Enola Holmes" franchise.
