Movie Reviews Archives

Hot Springs Documentary Film Fest shorts venture from Seoul to the Andes

Stephen Koch 10/13/21 7:12pm

Ranging from seven to 21 brisk minutes, Tuesday’s short films took audiences from the Andes to Seoul, making stops at a Quapaw buffalo range and a Guatemalan teen’s cartoon reality in Los Angeles.

'The Eyes of Tammy Faye' not as inspired as is Chastain's turn in the spotlight

Werner Trieschmann 10/6/21 3:21pm

Chastain’s admiration for her character never waivers, even as we see the older Faye making unsuccessful pitches to C-level TV producers and eating TV dinners by herself with her dog.

Clark Duke's "Arkansas" is a Southern neo-noir with a road trip vibe

Sam Eifling 4/20/20 6:31pm

We review Glenwood native Clark Duke's directorial debut, "Arkansas," which hits streaming services May 5.

"Uncut Gems" is feverish and inspired

Sam Eifling 1/6/20 11:20am

"Uncut Gems” builds a genre-busting tale of crime and debt and chutzpah around an instantly indelible character named Howard Ratner, absolutely the last person in the world you’d want to play chicken against.

'The Rise of Skywalker' disappoints

Sam Eifling 12/30/19 3:47pm

The cast is fine. The effects are fine. The sense of wonder and adventure and beauty are all fine. What’s missing is any sort of payoff that suggests the keepers of these stories cared about them as anything other than an ATM.

Baumbach's "Marriage Story" is a romance about divorce

Kally Patz 12/16/19 10:55am

Watching the typical Baumbach family, you wonder, “How did they ever make it, these terrible people?” But watching “Marriage Story,” you think the opposite: “How did they ever fail?”

"Dolemite Is My Name" is low-key inspirational

Sam Eifling 10/29/19 11:02am

How did this whole story remain stuck in time for 45 years? And why does it feel so fresh anyway?

"Stranger Things" still more than the sum of its pop culture parts

Guy Lancaster 7/8/19 9:26pm

If the first season interrogated the nature of friendship, and the second trauma, this third season centers upon love and heroism.

"Booksmart" flips the teen romp formula

Sam Eifling 5/28/19 11:57am

The FOMO in a time of smartphones must be crippling: here you are plowing through AP Calc while elsewhere dudes are at Nick's karate-chopping stacks of pizza boxes and still scoring full rides to Stanford.

Baphomet monument in front of the state capitol building, featured in "Hail Satan?", a Magnolia Pictures release.

Penny Lane's "Hail Satan?" is a Rapert-y highlights reel of hypocrisy

Sam Eifling 4/30/19 11:44am

The new documentary “Hail Satan?”, directed by Penny Lane, falls somewhere between a ridealong with a genuinely oddball subculture and a valentine to the emerging religion of satanists.