The Boy and the Heron (2023 | Japan | 124 minutes | Hayao Miyazaki) In what might be his final film, master Japanese …
Author: Josh
Everyone’s invited to Saltburn for the holidays
The best thing Emerald Fennell does with her sharp satiric follow-up to A Promising Young Woman is giving the always-sublime weirdo Barry Keoghan a whole goddamned movie to finally let his freak flag fly. She brings a distinctly female gaze to a twisty class comedy about an Oxford scholarship nerd falling in (and in love with) with the college’s landed party people elite through the transformative power of doing a fortuitous favor for a fellow student.
May December has notes on a scandal
The names Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau are nowhere to be found in the press materials for Todd Haynes’s new film May December, but anyone alive in 1997 will instantly recognize their story as the launching point for Samy Burch’s screenplay and Julianne Moore’s uncanny performance.
The Killer sticks to the plan.
David Fincher’s latest film is about an incredibly meticulous craftsman doing dirty work for hire for incredibly wealthy clients in exactly the way he knows how to do them best.
The Marvels makes it work.
New theorem: if a Marvel movie it has a Spider-Man or a super pet, it’s going to be good. The Marvels has orange tabby cat Goose; thus the Marvels is pretty good. Q.E.D.
Seattle Film Critics name top Pacific Northwest Films of 2023
For the second year, the Seattle Film Critics Society (SFCS) has nominated the best in Pacific Northwest filmmaking as part of their annual awards.
Priscilla is a masterful glimpse inside American royalty
Using Priscilla Presley’s autobiography Elvis and Me (co-written with Sandra Harmon) as structure, Sofia Coppola presents her life as a series of baubles strung across a gossamer thread that spans the vast lonely gulf between a soda counter on an Army base in Germany in 1959 and a Las Vegas hotel in 1973.
Roundtable: Killers of the Flower Moon
In his review of Killers of the Flower Moon, Chris called Martin Scorsese’s three and a half hour historical film a masterpiece and one of the best movies of 2023. Josh saw it over the weekend and immediately wanted to talk about it, so we fired up a SunBreak Roundtable to hash out some thoughts and feelings about this epic movie. Spoilers, such as they are for a century’s old well-reported true story, follow.
Orcas Island Film Festival pulls out all the stops (again)
Every autumn, locals and visitors alike flock to the quaint town of Eastsound on Orcas Island to celebrate much of the year’s …
Chloe Domont’s Sundance smash Fair Play hits Netflix
Dispatches from Sundance: a mixed bag of a modern erotic psychodrama, a revisitation of recent political events, and a herculean performance from one of our great actors.