Black Bag is a sleek, sophisticated, and sexy thriller with some exceptional filmmaking from Soderbergh. At 93 minutes, not a moment is wasted. Once the plot is established, momentum propels the film like a brisk clip. This is not an action film, though. Soderbergh and Koepp are interested in the letting the story unfold while allowing us into the minds of the exceptionally cerebral players. Why does each character do what they do? Are they being manipulated? Or are they doing the manipulating? Is remaining loyal to your country and your partner mutually exclusive?
Category: Reviews
In Novocaine Jack Quaid is comfortably numb
Dan Berk and Robert Olsen subvert the unlikely hero trope in Novocaine, where everyman Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) leverages his rare condition—an inability to feel pain—to rescue the girl of his dreams.
Naomi Ackie and 17 (or 18) Robert Pattinsons propel Bong Joon Ho’s latest Mickey 17
Pity poor Mickey Barnes. Life is pretty terrible for most people in a dystopia, of course, but for Mickey, it’s particularly awful because he just cannot stay dead when he dies. As an “expendable,” he signed up to a life of many deaths and as many resurrections (reprintings).
Slamdance 2025: Quick Reviews
While the in-person festival has come to a close, the virtual Slamdance Film festival is in full swing. Nearly every film available at the theaters in LA are now available for streaming for a killer price. I’ll have more pocket reviews coming up!
Paddington in Peru completes the most loveable trilogy in film
I don’t remember much from my single-digit years, but I do remember having a fondness for Paddington Bear somewhere around first or second grade. I found him easily loveable and lacking any sense of maliciousness. When “they” started putting out live action Paddington movies a decade ago, I realized I still do.
Marvel’s Captain America: Brave New World has a new captain, a new president, and the same old problems.
Hulks are red, Captains are Blue,
Marvel’s comeback remains long overdue.
Love Hurts tries to be a playful punch in the gut but misses the mark
Marvin (Ke Huy Kwan) is a simple, easy-going and enthusiastic real estate agent in Milwaukee. He has his sights set on being the best of the best and it shows in every crumb of the fresh-baked cookies he makes for potential clients and co-workers alike. Soon it comes out that Marvin has a past he’d rather forget, a long-lost love (Ariana Debose) that suddenly re-emerges and a brother (Daniel Wu) who is hoping to wrangle him back into the family business.
Urgent and essential, No Other Land will make you want to throw rocks.
For his entire life, second-generation Palestinian activist Basel Adra has lived under threat of the permanent erasure of his small West Bank village in the Masafer Yatta region by the Israeli military. Declared a region of importance for training, the series of small cliffside villages has suffered multiple generations of destruction and resistance.
The SunBreak at Sundance 2025
Sundance 2025 is in full-swing in Park City, Salt Lake City, and — beginning from January 30–February 2, 2025 — online.
Sundance 2025 – Capsules
Sundance 2025 is in full-swing in Park City, Salt Lake City, and — beginning from January 30–February 2, 2025 — online.