Film

A collection of 523 posts

Film

In the Tall Grass Review (Film, 2019)

In the Tall Grass is playing on a similar idea. If you enter the tall grass, you can’t leave. The world shifts around you, voices echo from the wrong direction, and you will never find your way to the road again. It’s also adapted from a novella by Stephen King and Joe Hill by writer/director Vincen

Film

Ari Aster and The Horror of Grieving

Love him or hate him, Ari Aster has quickly made a name for himself in horror. In two short years, he released two of most talked about films in recent years. He broke the rules of horror to create a conversation about what defines terror in cinema.

Film

Fueled by Nostalgia: Revisiting Beloved Films in New Animated Forms

Did I ever expect to be comparing a big budget Disney remake with an accidentally absurdist Tom and Jerry film? No. But here we are.

Film

Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn Review (Film, 2020)

Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn refuses all of the superhero genre standards standards. This is a cartoonish crime drama where a grand total of one character has anything resembling a superpower. Everyone else is just really lucky or trained in a specific weapon.

Film

Atlantics Review (Film, 2019)

Mati Diop makes quite a statement in her debut narrative feature Atlantics. She crafts an original paranormal drama with romantic elements unlike anything I’ve encountered before. She plays with reinventing the tropes of the literary Gothic in a way that celebrates marginalized people and otherizes

Film

See You Yesterday Review (Film, 2019)

See You Yesterday is a response to police brutality against people of color in America. It’s a time travel adventure story about trying to right society’s wrongs no matter what the cost. It’s a tribute to the optimism of youth and a critique of how often society pushes the next generation to solve p

Film

The Turning Review (Film, 2020)

Director Floria Sigismondi’s spin on The Turn of the Screw is an ambiguous text in a way that can only happen onscreen. There is no easy answer. There is no right or wrong interpretation. It’s a series of events inspired by the Henry James’ story told in a specific but not necessarily chronological

Film

I Lost My Body Review (Film, 2019)

The trickiest part of creating an animated film is finding a style that matches the story you want to tell. You want something distinct so your film stands out. You want something expressive so the characters’ emotions are clear. You want to create a world that makes sense for the story you’re telli

Film

Parasite Review (Film, 2019)

There’s a word I use a lot in my writing, especially when it comes to auteur directors. The word is “accessible.” For me, an accessible film is one that invites in the audience. Whether that’s through character, storytelling, or design, an accessible film is one where the director has opened the doo

Film

Superlatives: Best in Film 2019

Like I said in my Best Films of 2019 post [https://sketchydetails.us/sketchy-details/bestfilmsof2019], I really can’t remember a year where I swapped so many films in and out of my Top 10 to find the combination that made sense to me. I wanted to take the time to recognize more of the films and show

Film

Best Films of 2019

The year in film was a quite a journey for me. There were projects I looked forward to getting my eyes on for months that I wound up being utterly disappointed in. There were projects I had no interest in seeing that I took a chance on and fell in love with. Nothing shook out how I expected and it r

Film

Marriage Story Review (Film, 2019)

Marriage Story is an unapologetic showcase for actors. Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver lead this two-hander about Nicole and Charlie, a married couple with a child starting the process of a divorce. They live together and they work together. They’re both artists. Nicole is an actor who stars in C

Film

Velvet Buzzsaw Review (Film, 2019)

Satirizing the art world is hard. People outside of it think they have a lot to say about it because a banana duct taped to a wall can make headlines. Visual art is not my area of expertise as a writer, though I try my best to approach it with an open mind. Velvet Buzzsaw does not have that mindset

Film

Little Women Review (Film, 2019)

What Gerwig refuses to do in her Little Women is sacrifice Meg, Beth, and Amy to tell the story of Jo. Jo is the central figure that connects all the plots together, though she is not shoehorned into every imaginable scene to make her the hero of the story. Meg is allowed to be a complicated charact

Film

Top 25 Films of the 2010s

One thing I always make it a point to do, no matter how busy my schedule, is a year-end wrap-up. I have a few more 2019 features to take in before I commit to a Best Films of 2019 list. However, I’ve seen enough films in the past 10 years to comfortable evaluate what I believe to be the best 25 of t

Film

Cats Review: An Addendum

I stand by every word of my unconventional review of the Cats film [https://sketchydetails.us/sketchy-details/catsreview2019]. The version released in theaters Thursday, 19 December 2019 was an unprecedented mess, filled with digital glitches rarely seen out of video games being beta tested. The use

Film

My Favorite Christmas Movies

There is no shortage of Christmas films. Lifetime, Hallmark Channel, and Netflix have gone all in on producing these heartwarming tales for the holiday season. They’re fun, they’re silly, and they’re all about positivity and joy. My own take on a holiday film is different.

Film

Cats Review (Film, 2019)

Imagine an inescapable force haunting society. No one knows for sure how it came to be, but it did. It is real. It is here. It is now and forever. Now and forever. That’s not a threat; that’s a promise.

Film

The Best Movie Musicals of the Decade (2010-2019)

The criteria for the list is rather simple. A great musical has to have a great song score. The singing has to be good. The songs have to service the story and the story needs to hit the emotional heights necessary to justify a song. And, most importantly, the film must have released between 2010 an

Books/Print

It's Complicated; or, Why I Never Formally Reviewed It and Chapter Two

No matter what version of It you look at, It is a narrative driven by irrational fears. For example, I fear ever picking up a Stephen King novel that runs more than 800 pages again. It, the novel, is one of those texts that turned me into a fan of Stephen King’s short stories. Contained to a single

Film

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark Review (Film, 2019)

Director André Øvredal broke out in the horror scene almost 10 years ago with Trollhunter. A masterpiece of monster horror, Trollhunter tells the story of a group of young people researching a series of bear murders in the woods. The truth is far more unbelievable: ancient trolls are real and a genu

Film

Midsommar Review (Film, 2019)

Content Warning: Midsommar features graphic images of suicide and focuses heavily on clinical depression. Horror can be a challenging genre to write about. I’ve spent my career as a writer trying to elevate the level of discourse surrounding an often neglected genre. I’m not the only critic working

Film

Pokemon Detective Pikachu Review (Film, 2019)

Pokemon Detective Pikachu poses an interesting challenge when it comes to a review. The film is incredibly well produced, but the actual bones of the film are not good. Even for a children’s film, the plot is pure nonsense. I enjoyed the film for what it was while also realizing the…creative limitat

Film

Unicorn Store Review (Film, 2019)

Kit is not happy. She fails out of art school, moves back in with her overly protective parents, and winds up taking on a temp job just to reclaim any sense of respect in the world. Her dreams have always been considered unrealistic but no one bothered to tell her until she faced her first big failu

Film

Us Review (Film, 2019)

I’m going to be forthright in this review. Us is great. Horror fans will find a lot of value in the film. While I will do my best to avoid spoilers for this film, I know from my own experience that I think the film is better enjoyed knowing as little as possible going in. Nothing beyond the initial