7
MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLAND Review
Most Beautiful Island has many illusions to perform, nerves to rattle and setpieces to conjure up.
Posted by: Ken Bakely
7
6.5
NOVITIATE Review
Novitiate is a movie of allusions, as the characters in its story become pieces with which we can examine the bigger changes outside the convent walls.
Posted by: Ken Bakely
2
GEOSTORM Review
I stand in awe at Geostorm, a film so ludicrously broken, so haphazardly smashed together, so unrepentantly clichéd, so brutally incoherent, so hilariously self-serious, that it crosses the boundaries of terrible, smashes through the meager definitions of good and bad or right and wrong, transforms itself in the interim, and becomes phenomenal.
Posted by: Ken Bakely
7
SYLVIO Review
Sylvio becomes a fascinating individual, managing to escape the cornering of what could have been a single-joke idea and instead anchoring a sly and effective comedy.
Posted by: Ken Bakely
7
TRAGEDY GIRLS Review
Tragedy Girls digs into the commodification of mass grief and hysteria that marks the town’s usable reactions to the deaths.
Posted by: Ken Bakely
6
SOY NERO Review
The first half of Soy Nero is a good movie about a young, undocumented immigrant who navigates a labyrinthine system in a quest to achieve citizenship. The second half is an efficient, bracing war film about a small band of soldiers who are ambushed and have to navigate a desolate, dangerous desert.
Posted by: Ken Bakely
4.5
LITERALLY, RIGHT BEFORE AARON Review
Here is a movie begging to be edited, boiled down to its essence, relieved from the languid cross it must bear running at feature length.
Posted by: Ken Bakely
5
LAST RAMPAGE Review
With such a clunky script, it’s all window-dressing for a rather empty interior.
Posted by: Ken Bakely
3.5
ENGLAND IS MINE Review
England is Mine is an uncharacteristically prescient and upfront name for a movie that isn’t even a fraction as bold.
Posted by: Ken Bakely
6
CLASH Review
CLASH clears away ideological nitpicking in favor of a constrained character study.
Posted by: Ken Bakely
6
CALIFORNIA TYPEWRITER Review
California Typewriter lives and dies on the visible passion of its interviewees, and the implied passion of its director.
Posted by: Ken Bakely
7.5
GOOK Review
Justin Chon's GOOK presents a consistent and well developed creative vision
Posted by: Ken Bakely
7
68 KILL Review
68 KILL works because it’s as funny as it is bloody, and it’s very bloody.
Posted by: Ken Bakely
6.5
VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS Review
VALERIAN is a beautiful mess, unrepentantly overstuffed from scene to scene, frame to frame.
Posted by: Ken Bakely
