We did it everyone! We made it to the end of a hellscape of a year. Wait… that feels familiar… let’s start again. Theatres got closer to normal in 2021. As of writing, Spider-man: No Way Home crossed the billion dollar threshold, making it the first film to do so…

Arguably one of the last movie stars on Earth, Leonardo DiCaprio dials it back to play a reserved midwestern professor and father of four. Unfortunately, it seems like a bit of a waste to have that performance used here. His Peter Finch moment in Network aside, Don’t Look Up doesn’t…

For all of the memes sure to come out of the film, Prisoners of the Ghostland isn’t as weird as you’d assume. Given the pairing of Nicolas Cage and Sion Sono, I expected absolute insanity, but this was more like an homage to Mad Max and Escape from New York…

What’s the French word for shock value? Julia Ducournau’s debut feature, Raw, took the world by storm at Cannes in 2016, building a great deal of anticipation for her follow-up. Unfortunately, after another round of festival praise, by the time Titane got to me the dominant feeling as credits rolled…

The quality is even with the Danish original (its mawkishness just easier to hide with subtitles) and Jake Gyllenhaal really does give it his all, but the film can’t sustain putting the audience in Joe’s (Gyllenhaal) shoes. The film does well at veering between capturing Joe’s blatantly disrespectful entitlement and…

Published at ThatShelf.com Of late, the biggest scares in horror are to our ears, courtesy of loud musical “stings” that accompany something or someone jumping into frame. After a period of silence, stings then lance built-up tension so filmmakers can begin building toward the next jump scare. The practice trended with the Paranormal…

Never as candid as it promises, Nomadland tries to reach both narrative and documentary feel for the lives of the new nomads. Unfortunately, in incorporating Frances McDormand’s Fern into the nomads routines, makeshift homes, and headspaces, authenticity is lost. Monologues presented by real-life nomads are engaging, close-ups that present their…

Four teachers gather for a fortieth birthday party and commiserate in the boredom that has permeated their lives. While dining, they discuss psychiatrist Finn Skårderud’s hypothesis that a perpetual blood alcohol content of 0.05 will make you more creative and relaxed. The others scoff at such nonsense, but Martin (Mads…

We did it everyone! We made it to the end of a hellscape of a year. The history-making Oscar win for Parasite gave cinephiles much to hope for, but that goodwill unraveled so very quickly. While it wasn’t a good year for going to theaters, it was a good year…