The crew in Ocean's 8
Review by Zach Dennis
It’s encouraging to see good returns on Ocean’s 8 because this cast earned it and demands to be given at least a trilogy of their own to delight and fascinate us with, but they also deserve some creativity — and that may start with an all-female reboot behind the camera as well as in front.
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Alden Ehrenrich as Han Solo in Solo: A Star Wars Story
Review by Reid Ramsey
For me, Solo: A Star Wars Story achieved what so many of the recent Star Wars movies can’t: it pulled me at warp speed (forgive me, I don’t really know the Star Wars terms) out of my chair and into a wholly new world, one not so burdened by the weight of a 40-year-old franchise but instead a world charged with hope and creativity.
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Review by Nadine Smith
The magic of Jackass was its relentless and unwavering commitment to never, ever giving a fuck, and it’s a magic Knoxville attempts to conjure once again with his latest bear trap—but Action Point is hardly a Jackass movie.
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Billy Howle and Saoirse Ronan star in director Dominic Cooke's On Chesil Beach
Review by Lydia Creech
Asexual audiences probably already know not to expect better, but I worry the general public will walk away thinking this scenario was a balanced argument and portrayal of an asexual character attempting to navigate (or not) a sexual relationship.
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Ethan Hawke stars in director Paul Schrader's First Reformed
Review by Nadine Smith
Like the Protestant God who offers forgiveness in exchange for good works, First Reformed is that rare American film that demands your attention and requires your reflection.
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Festival Coverage by Jessica Carr
On May 10th, Rotimi Rainwater’s documentary Lost in America premiered at the Nashville Film Festival. The documentary focuses on youth homelessness in America. It is a film that is near and dear to Rainwater’s heart because he was also homeless at one point in his life. In the film, Rainwater travels the country to shed some light on the epidemic of youth homelessness in America- highlighting issues like: human trafficking, the foster care system, youth rejected because of their sexuality, domestic violence, abuse and more. It also examines what many organizations, politicians and other public figures are doing (or not doing) to help these youths.
Cinematary's own Jessica Carr spoke with Rainwater about his film and why he thinks making this documentary was important.
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Keir Dullea in 2001: A Space Odyssey
Retro Review by Zach Dennis
Perfection is something unattainable and merely idealistic, but there is something truly absolute about 2001, a transcendence of purity. Its curious yet forthright, audacious yet small, fearsome yet gentle. The contradictions fit its creator, again, a man filled with self-assurance of his craft but anxious of his role in daily discourse.
This is what’s to love about it. Nothing is perfect, but nothing is 2001 either.
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Festival Coverage by Andrew Swafford and Jessica Carr
For ten days in May, the Nashville Film Festival screened over 100 feature films from around the world. Established in 1969, it is the longest running film festival in the state. Andrew and Jessica were able to catch six features across three days of the festival.
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Juliette Binoche stars in director Claire Denis's Let the Sunshine In
Review by Nadine Smith
Let the Sunshine In has been described by many as Claire Denis’ romantic comedy, and while it’s not without its jokes, the humor one mines from this collection of exacerbated encounters may vary. Isabelle’s life is filled with superficial scumbags, but a film cannot live on superficial scumbags alone.
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Lise Leplat Prudhomme stars in director Bruno Dumont's Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc
Review by Nadine Smith
In the classic version of this story, the adult Joan faces a choice too, but a negative choice: she must either accept a lifetime of extended punishment and abuse or embrace martyrdom in all its fiery glory. Jeanette, on the other hand, faces an active choice. The anguish Jeanette reckons with is not the anguish of death; that’s saved for the sequel. It’s the anguish of life, of the choice between the life medieval society has written for her or the life God has offered. Oh, and there are headbanging nuns too.
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Crista Alfaiate and Dinarte Branco star in director Miguel Gomes's Arabian Nights
Retro Review by Michael O’Malley
It’s this conflict--between the impulse to comment on real events and the fundamental unreality of movies--that’s at the heart of Miguel Gomes’s 2015 three-volume feature, Arabian Nights (As Mil e uma Noites, in its original Portuguese).
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Amy Schumer stars in Marc Silverstein and Abby Kohn's I Feel Pretty
Review by Jessica Carr
After watching the trailer for I Feel Pretty, I worried that Schumer would be the butt of every joke because she thinks she is attractive and others do not. However, I think the film is smarter than people are giving it credit for.
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Tom Holland, Robert Downey Jr., Dave Bautista, Chris Pratt and Pom Klementieff star in Avengers: Infinity War
Review by Courtney Anderson
Avengers: Infinity War felt like an amazing, dazzling, super fun exercise in futility.
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Review by Nadine Smith
One of the first words we hear in Zama, Argentine director Lucrecia Martel’s adaptation of the novel of the same name by Antonio di Benedetto, is “voyeur.” This frames the rest of the film and its perspective on colonialism: the indigenous and enslaved persons in the film are often pushed to the margins of the frame, but they are not absent; Martel shows them watching their oppressors as much as their oppressors watch them.
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John Krasinski and Noah Jupe star in A Quiet Place
Review by Ben Shull
A couple weeks ago, a highly-esteemed/respected Cinematary critic published a write-up on John Krasinski’s latest sci-fi thriller, A Quiet Place. While I agree with a couple of the reviewer’s grievances, particularly regarding the scoring of the film, there were a few main points that I couldn’t get behind. The critique had a much more scathing tone than I felt it deserved and I wanted to throw my own opinion into the mix because I do believe this to be an important film among the modern cinematic canon and, ultimately, within the science fiction genre.
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Joaquin Phoenix stars in director Lynne Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here
Review by Nadine Smith
Ramsay’s film could maybe work under another title: How To Disappear Completely, after the song from the band that made composer Jonny Greenwood famous. For that seems to be what Joe wishes to achieve: not death, but total disappearance. He craves nonexistence; he wants to be written out of history like George Bailey, but never put back in. Instead, what we receive is the total disappearance of what made Ramsay so distinctive and so evocative as a director, with only traces of brilliance in its wake. For most of its runtime, I found myself wishing You Were Never Really Here would disappear too.
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Emily Blunt stars in director John Krasinski's A Quiet Place
Review by Andrew Swafford
I’m fascinated by the fact that A Quiet Place is maybe the first ever mainstream horror film created by someone whose appreciation for the genre is informed almost exclusively by horror from the last few years--the new wave of “elevated horror,” to use Krasinski’s unfortunate phrasing. With these specific movies in mind, how does their influence play out in the film?
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Ike Barinholtz, Leslie Mann, and John Cena star in director Kay Cannon's Blockers
Review by Malcolm Baum
The goal is simple: it’s to give teenage girls a light-hearted and raunchy sex comedy that’s usually focused towards a male demographic.
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Olivia Cooke and Anya Taylor-Joy in Thoroughbreds
Review by Jessica Carr
On the surface, it seems like the ideal place to live life to the fullest without a care in the world. But Thoroughbreds is much more interested in cracking the surface and revealing the rotten core underneath.
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Festival Coverage by Zach and Jack Dennis
For four days in April, the Chattanooga Film Festival in Chattanooga, Tennessee brings genre films from around the world to the Scenic City for a schedule filled with world premieres and live events. Zach and his twin brother Jack were able to catch a number of the films shown during the festival.
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