Reviews

The United States vs. Billie Holiday shows how not to make a biopic about a historic figure

by Chase Hutchinson

Billie Holiday was an incredible artist and a courageous person whose impact echoed long beyond her lifetime. Holiday’s music has deeply resonated despite her talents not receiving proper recognition until after her death. That death came at a tragically young age and stemmed from struggles with addiction. She was targeted by the U.S. government for that addiction and for singing the still mighty song “Strange Fruit” as it protested the lynchings of Black people.

Despite being about such a historic figure with a committed central performance by singer Andra Day, The United States vs. Billie Holiday creates a middling-at-best biopic that is only barely salvageable.

Reviews

Brazil’s My Darling Supermarket explores the mundane in search of truth

by Morgen Schuler

Even before the pandemic hit the world like a freight train, front-line workers in supermarkets, gas stations, and fast food restaurants were under-appreciated and grossly underpaid. That doesn’t mean that they were undereducated or mindless automatons simply doing their job ad nauseam just to get a paycheck. Meaningful questions, desires and aspirations dwell within all temples of commerce and the Supermercado Veran in Sao Paolo, Brazil is no exception, which is where this story takes place.

Reviews

I Care A Lot is a showcase for Rosamund Pike and a Peak Netflix Movie

by Josh

I Care A Lot (2021 | USA | 118 minutes | J Blakeson)

Netflix has its share of great (or aspiring to be great) cinema — e.g., Roma, The Irishman, maybe even Mank — but as nice as it is that they indulge the occasional auteur with commercially questionable projects, their great gift to the world may be the Good Enough Netflix Movie. Light yet engaging, well-paced, an amount of star power, maybe a bit of an edge, and a grab bag of genres that shift every half hour to comfortably disappear two hours of quality time on your couch. J. Blakeson’s I Care A Lot falls into the latter category: it opens as a dark comedy about swindling old people, morphs a few times into a mystery, a heist, and a violent revenge thriller, before coming full circle. But throughout the ever-shifting tone, it remains a constant showcase for Rosamund Pike.

Reviews

The underlying tragedy and humanity of Nomadland

by Chase Hutchinson

There is much to reflect on with the film Nomadland. It is perhaps the most critically praised film of the year, the Seattle Film Critics Society named it their best film of the year this week, and for good reason. It is a beautifully constructed work by writer and director Chloé Zhao who adapted it from the 2017 book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by journalist Jessica Bruder. After Zhao’s last film, 2017’s The Rider, it was hard to imagine her creating another film on par with that one.

Yet Zhao has done just that and more.