All Film Reviews

Lady Bird (R)

There are a great deal of moments in Lady Bird that made me feel as though I were looking into a mirror, nostalgic for a past that was incredibly close to Lady Bird’s. Those moments weren’t always the funny ones, to be perfectly honest. Those moments weren’t always the funny ones, to be perfectly honest. I distinctly remember squabbles with my parents, feeling as though I were independent enough at seventeen not to need their approval.
Black Panther (PG-13)

Recently – within the last three months, let’s say – the latest entry in a blockbuster franchise with at least ten theatrical releases to its name (and a million more well on the way) was released. This new film received near-universal critical praise, with many viewers ecstatically describing it as a departure from previous installments […]
American Graffiti (PG)

American Graffiti is arguably George Lucas’ masterpiece, not necessarily because it’s any more or less culturally significant or cinematically innovative than Star Wars, but simply because it’s Lucas’s most personal film. Here is a piece of his life, adapted into an ensemble piece that explores his own personal sense of nostalgia in a surprisingly bittersweet and grounded way.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (PG-13)

What makes a film, or anything for that matter, good? Perhaps I should answer that in a different way, since the word “good” in the English language has two broad but distinct definitions – the first moral, the second beneficial. Both of these are valuable as qualities in filmmaking, but what I mean to ask specifically is how do we, from our various frames of reference, discern value in a particular film?
The Lady from Shanghai (Not Rated)

Orson Welles’ The Lady from Shanghai begins with the sea, roiling and foaming beneath the opening credits. Many films noir are laden with existential anxieties; indeed, fatalism and cynicism are as commonplace in the genre as stylized lighting, bantering innuendoes, and convoluted crimes.
TRON: Legacy (PG)

TRON: Legacy can hardly be called a great film, but it made quite the impression on me when I first saw it on opening night back in December of 2010, and I have been making excuses for it ever since. Emerging from the theater, I might even, in my adolescent fervor, have described it as […]
John Wick: Chapter 2 (R)

Early in John Wick: Chapter 2, the titular assassin (Keanu Reeves) somberly places his weapons in a box, puts the box in a hole in his basement, and covers it with wet concrete. The action suggests an addict burying his stash, and symbolizes his intent to leave his world of violence and live a new […]
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (PG-13)

Recently, FilmFisher editor Joshua Gibbs wrote a piece defending film critics against a common accusation: “This film was just plain fun. Why don’t you snobby film critics get it?” I stand by Gibbs’ argument in that piece, and would like to make an addendum: it is difficult to make a film that is truly fun. […]
Dunkirk: The Better Part of Valour (PG-13)

There is an unspoken understanding among filmmakers that war is hell and that war films must convince their audiences of it. And it isn’t a controversial notion. The guy who exits the theater nodding sagely and remarks, “Man, war is hell,” can’t expect much pushback from his buddies. Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk contributes to the genre […]
Wonder Woman (PG-13)

In the Pensées, Pascal writes, “I blame equally those who decide to praise man [and] those who blame him… I can only approve those who search in anguish.” Pascal’s anguish stems from man’s contradictory nature: caught inescapably between the extremes of wretchedness and greatness, he is neither wretched enough to be a beast nor great […]
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (PG-13)

Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story feels nothing like any other Star Wars film. At first, that’s jarring, even off-putting. Once you settle into its particular rhythm, it’s exhilarating. There is no opening crawl of yellow text setting up the story. There are no Kurosawa-esque wipes to transition between scenes. The story isn’t […]
Jackie (R)

The aftermath of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is shown twice in Pablo Larraín’s Jackie. The first time the camera glides along behind the motorcade before swooping stylishly overhead to offer a brief, obscured glimpse at the President’s dead body slumped over in his wife’s lap. Then it is over. The presentation is slick, […]
Snowden: Propaganda and the Mundane Beasts It Makes (R)

Oliver Stone is one of the few directors whose auteurism is his ideology. While he has hit a few correct notes (mostly in the Adagio for Strings sequences of Platoon) there is very little about his directorial style—no signature montages or lengthy tracking shots—that say “Oliver Stone” the way that his completely misinformed takes on […]
Doctor Strange (PG-13)

Scott Derrickson’s Doctor Strange is the latest installment in the rapidly expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe, a collection of interconnected superhero movies that, to many viewers, are starting to feel like indistinguishable products. Doctor Strange sidesteps and invites that complaint in interesting ways. The broad strokes of the story here are par for the course, with […]
A Gritty Goodness: The River Thief (Not Rated)

The typical hero of a faith-based film measures their own satisfaction with the ending by the metric ton. If you stuck a teaspoon in the ending of the average Christian film, you’d pull it out dripping with enough sweet goo to give everyone in the world a mouthful of cavities. We don’t merely like redemption. […]
Becoming Like The Teacher: Stranger Things And Pedagogy (Not Rated)

The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher. -Luke 6:40 Here, finally, is something which cares nothing for novelty, originality, innovation. There are fine television programs which do not worship at the altar of The New, but the makers of those programs are infrequently interested […]
God’s Not Dead 2: First World Problems (PG)

If courage is a mark of greatness in film making, God’s Not Dead 2 is deserving of more than a few laurels. It takes real guts to give a movie called God’s Not Dead 2 a theatrical release date of April 1st. If the release date is analogous to riding a motorcycle without a helmet, […]
Suicide Squad: Are Comic Book Movies Actually Interesting? (PG-13)

“A lot of comic book movies are actually pretty interesting…” If, over the last ten years, you have lived within the vicinity of teenage boys, you are likely familiar with this claim. The claim that a thing is “actually interesting” is, often enough, actually interesting in and of itself. The “actually interesting” claim assumes that […]
Captain America: Civil War (PG-13)

This is the zenith of Marvel’s storytelling method. Over the past eight years – a time period winkingly referred to in the film – the studio has built an intricately interconnected “cinematic universe” through thirteen feature films. This model has drawbacks and benefits, both of which I discuss at length in my essay on The […]
The Witch (R)

Long time readers of this website will have no problem predicting where a review of this film was apt to begin. “Let us not neglect meeting together…” as St. Paul teaches. “…ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is…” as the blessed Jeremiah teaches. Either of these verses ought to do for […]