Category: Review

  • Sing

    Sing

    Buster Moon desperately wants to save his theater… and himself. When he was a young koala, his parents took him to see a stage production in which a sensational Suffolk sheep named Nana Noodleman (voiced by Jennifer Hudson) sang about “finding a way home…” and “carrying a weight” as she performed a graceful, operatic rendition…

  • The Innocents

    The Innocents

    Faith is twenty four hours of doubt, and one minute of hope. Serene liturgical music fills the ears as the film opens, the voices of women, nuns in a contemplative convent. And we are held there, just long enough, long enough to feel the way a sacred space can open something within us, can deepen…

  • Get Out

    Get Out

    Jordan Peele is best known for his comedy work on Mad TV and Key and Peele, but for his feature film debut he chose a decidedly different path. Get Out is not only a horror film, it’s a horror film about racism. The opening scene sets the tone: a black man walks nervously along the…

  • Brief Encounter

    Brief Encounter

    The first film review I ever wrote was of Brief Encounter, for a Wisconsin Lutheran college newspaper. The review is, mercifully, lost to us, and so I find myself writing another, having seen and lived a lot more in the time between. Yet even now, as then, if someone asks what my favorite film is,…

  • Split

    Split

    Ever since Newsweek dubbed him “The Next Spielberg” in July 2002, M. Night Shyamalan has had a rough go in Hollywood. That’s not to say he’s hurting for monetary success: An IMDB list in 2014 — following his critically maligned After Earth — listed Shyamalan as one of 30 most profitable filmmakers currently alive, above…

  • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

    Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

    No one writes movies like Charlie Kaufman. Who else would make his feature screenwriting debut about a portal inside the brain of John Malkovich as he did in Being John Malkovich? Who else would turn his angst of trying to adapt a book into a meta-story of himself trying to adapt a book as he…

  • Silence

    Silence

    Silence is the story of two priests who travel from Rome to Japan in search of their former teacher, Father Ferreira, who is said to have apostatized* under persecution from the government. Father Ferreira wrote to Rome of these persecutions and of his commitment to suffer with the Japanese Christians. Rumors begin circulating that despite…

  • Moana

    Moana

    Let’s make no mistake: Walt Disney studios isn’t hurting for recognition. Not only does it have arguably the most history of any Hollywood corporation, but it’s also now home to three of Hollywood’s most reputable and financially viable universes: Star Wars, Marvel, and Disney Pixar. And yet, Disney still finds itself lacking in one key…

  • Hidden Figures

    Hidden Figures

    When I was a child the science museum in my hometown hosted a traveling exhibit featuring all kinds of information about the moon, the U.S. space program, and even some samples of lunar rock (which is less interesting to look at when you’re ten-years-old than it sounds). To prepare for our field trip to the…

  • I Am Not a Serial Killer

    I Am Not a Serial Killer

    The core protagonist here John Wayne Cleaver was definitely born with a serial killer’s name, and is brilliantly played by young Max Records (who also filled the shoes of the growing adolescent in Spike Jonze’s 2009 adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are). As seen in the film, being born with certain tendencies doesn’t chain…