• Johnny Corncob

    Johnny Corncob

    ★★★★½

    I had been waiting to see this for half a decade,
    straight up, and it definitely did not disappoint.

  • Capone

    Capone

    ★★★★½

    Clinical experimentation, which is what I should have expected from Trank — a filmmaker clearly not being given enough credit — at this point, but it caught me off guard nonetheless. The comparisons to Gotti (of which this is essentially an opposite), et cetera, simply had me prepared for an entirely different, and altogether much more by-the-books experience. I was not expecting a bizarro, fractured, absurd, genuinely terrifying, purposefully off-putting and deeply, deeply sad study of a haunted psyche.

    Capone

  • Hacksaw Ridge

    Hacksaw Ridge

    ★★★★½

    Jesus Christ.

  • Aviva

    Aviva

    ★★★★

    Boaz Yakin's best film in over 25 years (since 1994's Fresh). Going from Boarding School to *this* is somehow even more wild than Matteo Garrone's transition from Dogman to Pinocchio -- and better, as well.

  • The Fury

    The Fury

    ★★★★½

    One of the best films from
    one of the best filmmakers.

  • Figurant

    Figurant

    ★★★★

    This'd make a great (short form) double
    feature with Jonathan Glazer's The Fall.

  • The Voice in Your Head

    The Voice in Your Head

    ★★★★½

    Utterly goddamn brilliant.

  • Runon

    Runon

    ★★★★½

    Will Daniel Newell Kaufman
    be the heir to the Safdie legacy?

  • Lions in the Corner

    Lions in the Corner

    ★★★★½

    Easily one of, if not the strongest of the SXSW shorts;
    I'm so, so, so glad that a light was shone on this story.

  • Betye Saar: Taking Care of Business

    Betye Saar: Taking Care of Business

    ★★★★

    Absolutely fucking fantastic;
    my father would've loved this.

  • Inception

    Inception

    ★★★½

    I don’t dislike Nolan, not at all, but I might consider this the great film so many others do if the characters closed their mouths every once in a while. Still, just like with The Prestige, Dunkirk and Memento, the editing is, in my eyes, excellent. I think I’ll give The Prestige, my favorite of his films, a re-watch soon — before Tenet, for which I’m honestly pretty stoked.

  • Ema

    Ema

    ★★★★

    All of the colors of the rainbow, coming together in pitch dark — a reflection of ink in the face of an aurora borealis. Heartbreaking, investigational, and invigorating. Not one to miss, or necessarily even “understand,” but one to feel on a deep, internal level; the coal black fire of the soul heating a disco of death and rebirth.