Drama

Here’s the thing about the evolving Magic Mike series: It’s not about the stripping. Sure, the dance moves are fantastic, but at the heart of it, it’s about Mike Lane (Channing Tatum) trying to find his way amid shady club owners (Magic Mike), impending adulthood (Magic Mike XXL), and, finally, being someone’s everything while becoming […]

Alice, Darling is a snapshot of a woman in hell. Completely lost and drained of life, it takes two women to bring her back to the land of the living, and even their combined efforts still might not be able to break through. We’re put right in the titular Alice’s (Anna Kendrick) physical and mental […]

Much like any “stranger in a strange land” film, Kitchen Brigade (original French title: La Brigade) mines its comedy and tension from two disparate factions having to learn about each other. There’s the initial standoff, followed by a gradual armistice which leads to understanding and cooperation. And, of course, who can forget the happy-happy endings […]

The head-scratching Squeal (former title: Samuel’s Travels) feels like a Monty Python sketch turned completely weird – well, weirder than it probably would be, but compelling nonetheless. Its manner reminds me of a similar film called Men & Chicken, especially with its hard-charging, heavily exaggerated tone. Both these films operate as a stream of consciousness, […]

Looking back at Don’t Make Me Go, there’s something about Vera Herbert’s script that brings to mind… well, almost every movie it borrows from. You can point to any scene in this film and find its equivalent in any number of other family dramas or road trip comedies. From the voiceover narration warning us straight […]

Where Emergency makes its impact is in the way it makes the Black struggle real. Although we see it on the news almost every other day, what we don’t get often is the first-person perspective of just how harrowing it is to be a minority and not be able to trust the systems that are […]