After Marvel Studios fumbled the production of Bassam Tariq’s vision for Blade with Mahershala Ali, the director and actor both left the long-gestating MCU project to do Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother. The action movie then used Ali’s training for Eric Brooks to instead put him in a tormented character study about a single Muslim father trying to do right
Read MoreThe metaphor is heard loud and clear in Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord, this year’s Palme d’Or-winning picture, as the evangelical, conservative Gheorghiu family moves into a highly progressive (and liberal) neighborhood in Norway. If you didn’t click it because you didn’t meet Mungiu’s latest at its terms, it’s an apt parallel for the return of conservatism, which has become more prominent around
Read MoreThere isn’t a better way to open the 51st edition of the Toronto International Film Festival than with a special screening of Na Hong-jin’s Hope. This is the South Korean genre artist’s first feature in ten years, following the masterful The Wailing in 2016. It’s been a while, which made the prospect of a Cannes premiere all the more special for
Read MoreRian Johnson is known for subverting audience expectations and rejecting traditional narrative structures, which is why I’m always drawn to his work, even if some of them weren’t as acclaimed as others. I will still be the first to defend and praise Star Wars: The Last Jedi as the best film of 2017, one of the decade’s crowning achievements, and the best Star Wars movie
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