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When a young loving couple visit a pristine suburb looking for a new home, they become trapped in a mysterious world of quiet isolation turning their casual visit at a possible starter home into an endless nightmare. The title is a real word meaning a living space where plants or animals are kept under observation (hint hint), and just like this fancy word, this film is not for everyone.

Irresistible is a satirical comedy about an out-of-touch political strategist (a predictable Steve Carell, Beautiful Boy, 2018) who moves from Washington D.C. to rural Wisconsin to help a conservative farmer (a laconic Chris Cooper, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, 2019) run for mayor.

When the opening shot of a film is a close-up of a young woman's face screaming an expletive slightly above the camera, it's a good sign viewers have started a crass, biting comedy that will keep them mostly entertained. Actress Zoey Deutch (Zombieland: Double Tap, 2019) plays a loud, street smart hustler determined to get out of her blue-collar life in Buffalo, New York through her passion for mo...

I usually address a newly released film in my weekly reviews, but this week I'm writing about a brilliant 2018 film called The Kindergarten Teacher currently available through Netflix. Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Dark Knight, 2008) plays an unsatisfied kindergarten teacher in New York City who thinks one of her students is a gifted prodigy of original poetry. But the teacher's nurturing guidance slowly...

Actress Elisabeth Moss (The Invisible Man, 2020) appears to be on a mission continually portraying serious female roles in dark, emotionally arduous films (like The Invisible Man from earlier this year, The Kitchen from 2019, Us from 2019, and The Handmaid's Tale TV series from 2017 to today). And like a contemporary Greta Garbo, Elisabeth has succeeded again diving bravely into a richly complex,...

The Painter and the Thief is a documentary released on May 22nd of this year and available on Hulu. When two expensive paintings are stolen from an art gallery in Oslo, Norway, the artist privately reaches out to one the convicted thieves to try and locate her paintings. But the thief does not remember anything about his crime.

When watching the R-rated comedy, The Lovebirds, it starts out with a very romantically casual mood, but that mood is soon smashed like a cockroach under a boot as a loving couple (a.k.a. lovebirds) is launched into a dangerous mystery of dead bodies, hot bacon grease, and a secret sex cult.

Sometimes a film gains attention for great acting performances or for new special effects technology, and sometimes a film gains attention for controversy. Adam has made a mark as a controversial film.

Although the weather outside is sunny and breezy right now, it makes for an interesting time to watch a film full of snow, ice, and terror.

Oftentimes film critics describe what they see by categorizing films into genres or styles. But then films like Give Me Liberty come along that achieve such a uniqueness it's difficult to specify any genre boundaries. First released in August 2019, and now available through Netflix, Give Me Liberty is a gem of independent filmmaking that takes viewers on a hectic, crowded, one-day journey.

Writer-director Trey Edward Shults (It Comes at Night, 2017) is successfully spreading his roots in telling interesting, rich, current stories. Waves is Shults' latest entry in the independent film canon, and like a hot slice of lasagna, it is layered, filling, and wonderful.

Recently, I watched the drama Tigertail. Growl! But everybody calm down. This film has nothing to do with the documentary miniseries Tiger King currently on Netflix.

Lost Girls is a dark murder mystery based on a true story and adapted from the 2013 non-fiction book by Robert Kolker called Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery. This film was released in March 2020 and is currently available through Netflix as part of their original content.

This film started at Sundance in January 2019 and was fully released to the world on March 13th this year through the personal streaming platform Hulu. Big Time Adolescence is an R-rated, coming-of-age comedy about an awkward teenage boy and his friendship with a pot-smoking, aimless, college dropout in his twenties.

Since movie theaters are closed to everyone, I watched a film through the streaming platform of Netflix called Horse Girl (released earlier this year). Sometimes a film is described as "mainstream" to explain its wide-ranging appeal and entertainment value to the largest audience possible. Horse Girl is not one of those films. So far, Jeff Baena has only directed darkly twisted comedies like The L...

When a group of random strangers wake up outside together scattered across a lightly forested meadow, it's not long before bullets start whizzing and blood starts splattering. Surprising deaths and blunt punchlines fill this dark comedy as unwitting Americans scramble for survival. But the literal hunt of this film is not an ordinary fight with just guns and knives. The gleefully nasty violence is...

Ben Affleck (Gone Girl, 2014) is evidently not afraid to embrace a difficult leading role in this plaintive drama directed by Gavin O'Connor (The Accountant, 2016). Ben Affleck's movie star power was almost lost forever in the mess of the DC Comic films Justice League (2017) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016). But The Way Back has shown us he can still offer good performances. Affleck p...

Universal Studios officially launched a new movie campaign in 2017 called Dark Universe advertising upcoming films retelling classic monster stories through a contemporary lens. This campaign began with The Mummy, starring Tom Cruise, and it was one of the worst movies of 2017. The Dark Universe campaign ended as soon as it had begun.

Based on Jack London's novel first published in 1903, this book has been the homework for many junior high and high school English students. The Call of the Wild centers on a mischievous domestic dog who is kidnapped from his home, taken to the outskirts of Canada, and sold as a sled dog to work in the unforgiving winter of the Yukon Territory during the Gold Rush of the 19th century. As various h...

First of all, let me clarify the full title of this film shown on the poster and in the film's credits.

When a place crash kills a young Englishwoman's family, she spirals into depression and prostitution (and not the fancy kind with leather boots and perfume). Actress Blake Lively (A Simple Favor, 2018) shows us she can embrace the "de-glam" of a woman come undone. But the spiral stops when the young woman learns the plane crash was orchestrated by terrorists. Vengeance will be hers!

People might think they've seen this movie before, but the passion and realism in it might make you think again. Just Mercy is based on Bryan Stevenson's 2014 book titled Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption about the author's experience moving to rural Alabama as a Harvard Law graduate in 1989 to offer free legal representation to men wrongfully convicted or unfairly sentenced to death r...

Something about the genre of war films always seems to create a catalyst for exciting and different storytelling, and our latest example of this catalyst is 1917. Two young British soldiers make a dangerous journey into enemy territory during WWI to deliver a message that will stop their fellow fighters from entering an outnumbered battle.

It seems no topic today is more polarizing, and more incendiary, than politics. And Jay Roach (All the Way, 2016) is still building a name for himself as a talented and topical director uniquely adept at telling political stories. But instead of showing us the high-stakes complications of mainstream political lives like he did with Recount (2008) and Game Change (2012), Bombshell tells a story abo...

If you couldn't get enough of the adolescent humor and wild visual effects of the previous Jumanji film from 2017...then have no fear! There's more computer-generated animals, more jokes about private parts, and more casual brushes with death.