Plainclothes is stunning, zeroing in on a young closeted police officer’s journey of self-acceptance while participating in sting operations to entrap gay men in upstate New York. Carmen Emmi uses clever visual language to communicate both the dangers of being gay in the 90s and the anxiety that can create inside closeted men. Tom Blyth conveys that anxiety, and the subsequent elation of finding someone he thinks can love, beautifully, his face and body practically vibrating as he’s confronted with…

Bill Condon makes a solid case for him being the only person who should make movie musicals. KOTSW is fantastic, a dazzling, charming, tongue-in-cheek celebration of the transformative power of film and how it helps us survive the worst possible circumstances. It also doubles as a unique, thoughtful, and surprisingly romantic love story between two people who rewrite their own preconceived notions of each other, what they represent, and gender and politicals to survive and thrive. The musical numbers are…

Bong Joon-ho is back in his unapologetically weird era (hello, Okja!!) with Mickey 17, where he repeatedly kills and revives Robert Pattinson to demonstrate the callous ineptitude of personality-driven capitalism (the Elon Musk special, if you will). He has a blast sending up the system, landing every laugh like a gut punch as he skewers everything from insipid religious fanaticism to the lifestyle influencer ecosystem. It should be too much to cover, but he knows exactly where to dig in…

A carefully plotted, thoughtful exposé on the US book banning effort and how morally repugnant, catastrophically stupid, and remarkably well-funded it is, a fascist enterprise run by the worst people you know with the small vocabularies. It’s impossible not be outraged watching students and astonishingly brave librarians beg for freedom of expression and information while a bunch of callous, emotionally dead sociopaths watch stone-faced while having their pockets lined by people making a fortune of the death of education and…

If they cut Joey King’s character out of the movie, or at least minimized her role, this would be the best romantic comedy of the year. A grounded yet swoon-worthy film about two unlikely people falling in love by forming genuine connections that have nothing to do with their ages and occupations. The movie set scene is elite rom-com. Unfortunately, Zara is a petulant adult who sucks the air of the film, but at least everyone calls her out on…

Thunderbolts is an interesting one. The first half of the film feels like textbook post-Endgame MCU, where the script spends too much time justifying its existence, although there are breaks of genuine excitement via fun action scenes and bickering between the group. It also further highlights how terribly written Valentina is, given that I still can’t tell you why we should care about her (to the point where Julia Louis-Dreyfus, legend that she is, just pulls from her Selina Meyer…

A darkly comic, sobering, brutal and ruthlessly engaging film about how society fetishizes, exploits, and condescends to people with disabilities, and how it manifests in the most emotionally vulnerable. Aaron Schimberg asks uncomfortable questions, digs into the murkiest psychologies of his characters, and puts them in the most absurd, emotionally shattering circumstances. He takes big swings, and although he misses the mark somewhat in the final stretch, what he uncovers about the weaponization of beauty and art are profound. Sebastian…

Sinners is an audacious, staggering film, where Ryan Coogler finally gets to explore Black freedom without the limitations of studio IP  (Creed,
Black Panther) and real-life accuracy (Fruitvale Station). He uses the vampire genre to rewrite what liberation can mean, grounding it in an individual’s identity rather than a collective, quick-fix answer. And yet, as heady as its themes can be, and as slow as it starts, Sinners is an absolute blast of a cinematic experience, with plenty of violence,…

Seen at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival 

Babygirl is freaking everything. Completely subverts the May-December/workplace romance archetypes with an incisive, hilarious, rich, and deeply profound look at what women’s agency looks like in and out of the boardroom and bedroom. Manages a nearly impossible balance of acknowledging the ridiculousness of Romy and Samuel’s relationship and its BDSM leanings while taking all of its characters’ needs and wants seriously. The cast is obscenely great. Nicole Kidman is downright ferocious in Romy’s…

Luca Guadagnino crafts his most accessible film yet, putting sweaty psychosexual warfare into tennis cosplay. The film is relentless, taut, and surprisingly funny is exploring the love triangle between three players volleying between ambition and comfort. The framing device - a low level match where the emotional stakes are sky high - is great, although the script sometimes loses the character threads (specifically Tashi's connection to Art and Patrick, and the simmering sexual tension between Art and Patrick). That said,…