Fitting for a year in which global politics is pulling us kicking and screaming into the past, the first great movie of 2024 is a Paleolithic-era thriller about a tribal fear of “the other” and grotesque hypermasculinity. Please note that I didn’t say Out of Darkness is good. It isn’t. It is underlined, bolded, capital-G […]

From popcorn buckets sure to be misused in cosmically terrifying ways to what seems like an unprecedented social media blitz, Dune: Part Two is casting a pop culture shadow the size of an obese sandworm. One promo clip forced most of the performers to say the word “epic” when describing the film, as though they […]

Instead of your normally scheduled review, I am thrilled to bring you a giddy preview. When The Reader closed up shop back in September, I didn’t anticipate that I’d still be covering the Omaha Film Festival (OFF) six months or so later. And yet, here I am: Not getting paid and posting things for free […]

The death of the comic book movie genre is being greatly exaggerated, despite the fact that Madam Web is one hell of a motive for its murder. There’s an oft-repeated sitcom joke where a character has to find something good-but-small to praise in a horrible play or movie that their friend did. “The lighting was […]

My annual disclaimer: This list is late on purpose. Not only do I like to outwait the year-end listicle tsunami, but the Midwest still flies economy when it comes to movie releases. The year’s best films are served to the first-class coasts before the theatrical flight attendant serves us here in the flatlands. Also, studios […]

By any chance, is it a particularly loaded time to discuss a movie about the tepid indifference with which genocidal actions can be carried out? Are there, perhaps, parallels to be drawn with current events involving petty, selfish everyday monsters living privileged lives next to barbed wire fences encircling human beings rounded up and stripped […]

Strip out the attention-grabbing and brilliantly barbed satire from American Fiction, and it would still be one of the best films of the year. The most impressive trick that writer/director Cord Jefferson pulls off in his adaptation of Percival Everett’s novel Erasure isn’t the hilariously pointed critique of how white guilt flattens the Black experience. […]

I don’t know for sure, but I’d venture to guess that most movies that start with a rapist whisking away a baby he fathered with his daughter don’t feature a lot of joyous singing. Most movies aren’t The Color Purple, a classic work that has been periodically refreshened and reincarnated from book to movie to […]

Called “warm” and “cute” by well-meaning liars, The Holdovers is a wildly depressing movie that finally captures the inherent unbearable sorrow of Christmastime. In the same way that The Bear – three panic attacks standing on each other’s shoulders dressed as a TV show – is considered a comedy, The Holdovers does sometimes have someone […]