One throughline of Welsh director Gareth Evans’ films is their punishing bleakness. Best known for the Indonesian crime martial arts films like “The Raid” and its sequel, Evans’ films linger on moments where many would turn their lens elsewhere. Take a moment in “Apostle” where we see a youth get publicly executed by having a
Author and philosopher G.K. Chesterton wrote in his story collection, Tremendous Trifles, “The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for want of wonder.” Director Isaiah Saxton’s directorial debut, the fantasy adventure film “The Legend of Ochi,” feels like a warning against the beauties we might overlook if we let fear, instead
Like the medical dramas of the 2000s, the following decade was swamped by shows about dance. One of the most prevalent was Amy Sherman-Palladino’s “Bunheads,” which followed a former Vegas showgirl turned small-town ballet teacher, and was unfortunately cancelled after one season. Now, nearly 15 years later, Sherman-Palladino and her husband, Daniel Palladino, are back
Video game writers have become much more adept at using death as something more worthwhile than a dramatic plot device over the last decade or so. The starting point in Tetsuya Takahashi’s “Xenoblade Chronicles 3” is a frank admission that no one knows how to handle grief, honor the dead, or live what amounts to
Ramy Youssef is one of the most interpersonal storytellers of today. Much of Ramy Youssef’s creations—the Max standup specials “Feelings” and “More Feelings” and the eponymous Hulu series “Ramy“—examine the realities Muslim immigrants face while navigating a post-9/11 world from an intuitive comic perspective. His latest venture alongside “South Park” alum Pam Brady, “#1 Happy
Apple TV’s new comedy-drama “Government Cheese” boasts a talented cast. The story is witty, filled with religious references and commentary on 1960s culture. The sprightly soundtrack features well-chosen soul, krautrock, and pop. Why, then, does this series not rank amongst the best things to air on TV this year? The problem isn’t lead actor (and
The latest film by David Cronenberg is his most personal in decades. Written after the death of his wife of 43 years, it’s about the unending nature of grief, the strange ways that people suffer, and what constitutes the truth in a world of endless, meaningless possibilities. In “The Shrouds” (in theaters April 18), an
A case can be made that the recent announcement of Amazon gaining creative control of the James Bond series from producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, its caretakers of the last thirty years, should be welcome news. After all, there hasn’t been a new film since “No Time to Die” opened in 2021, and
Alex Garland’s worlds, even those in the more fantastical realms of “Ex Machina,” “Dredd,” and “Annihilation,” find as many ways as possible to sell their fantasies within a realm of muted, grounded realism. And so it goes that his latest project, “Warfare,” takes that zeal for verisimilitude to its grandest degree yet: Recreating a real
I find it challenging to review “found footage” documentaries where the primary focus is on the footage itself. You watch it. It makes sense that someone would release the footage into the world. You make sense of it in the context of our world today. And you think, “Wow. Nothing’s changed in our world,” or