Andrea Riseborough and Christopher Abbot star in director Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor
Review by Jessica Carr
With its amazing visuals and effective storytelling, I think Possessor is able to create a riveting cinematic experience. It isn’t a comfortable one by any means, but it’s definitely something you feel viscerally.
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Tippi Hedren in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds
Interview by Zach Dennis
This is an excerpt from a 30-minute interview with film historian Dan Callahan on his new book, “The Camera Lies: Acting for Hitchcock.” The full interview transcript and audio can be found on our Patreon channel at patreon.com/cinematary.
Consider supporting us on Patreon for more interviews and bonus content from Cinematary.
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Jim Parsons, Robin De Jesus, Michael Benjamin Washington, and Andrew Rannells star in director Joe Mantello’s adaptation of The Boys in the Band
Review by Ash Baker
The Boys in the Band has been called “a time capsule of a dark period for LGBTQ+ Americans.” So, why open the time capsule now?
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Reviews by Zach Dennis
For ten days in September, the Toronto International Film Festival screened over 50 feature films from around the world. Established in 1976, it has been described as the “most important film festival in the world.” Due to the COVID-19 pandemic – and the United States’s response – all of the films featured here were viewed on their virtual platform rather than in person. Zach was able to “attend” the festival for several days and, during that span, caught 15 features from 6 different countries.
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Retro Review by Joseph Bullock
The stylistic vocabulary of Pale Flower is one inherited equally from Yakuza movies, existential cinema, and noir. What results is remarkably unique: a story of a disillusioned, misanthropic man becoming increasingly numbed to a landscape of isolation and violence; as well as images that stunningly evoke this world in its stark, rain-drenched textures.
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Review by Miranda Barnewall
Women Make Film is not a comprehensive overview of the history of female filmmakers, it is not about the female filmmakers’ personal lives and struggles, nor it is not how female filmmakers’ styles differ from those of men. Instead, it is simply about the films. Its path is not linear with a clear destination, but rather a road trip that meanders and weaves, often much more interested in the side-road forgotten amusements that people often pass by than the popular attractions.
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Review by Michael O’Malley
In terms of mysteries, this isn’t a procedural or a whodunnit; it’s simply a gigantic question mark for us viewers – what on earth is going on? As such, I’m Thinking of Ending Things fits mostly within the subgenre of puzzlebox mysteries, a kind of story where traditional exposition and context are delivered out-of-order or unconventionally, creating initially perplexing situations that viewers must slowly piece together as the story feeds them more and more of the big picture.
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Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves reprise their iconic roles in director Dean Parisot’s Bill and Ted Face the Music
Review by Logan Kenny
Bill and Ted Face the Music is one of the most emotional tributes to family, friendship and the power of creation that I’ve ever seen, and in the current chaos of everything, its sincere optimism and compassion makes things a little easier to bear.
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Steve Coogan, left, and Rob Brydon in The Trip to Greece. The entire Trip series is available on Hulu.
Review by Zach Dennis
It’s difficult to feel much sympathy for these two wildly successful comedians (or at least their alter-egos), but there is a lot of truth in the insecurity evident between the two men.
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Ethan Hawke stars as Nikola Tesla in director Michael Almereyda’s biopic of the inventor
Review by Reid Ramsey
Almereyda and his team want to reflect the fractured inner-mind of their main character, not just retell his life as a movie. It could be the fact that I haven’t been to a theater in months, but my eyes could not get enough of Almereyda’s construction. It is not necessarily a loud movie, but it is a big movie.
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Kate Lyn Sheil stars as Amy in She Dies Tomorrow by Amy Seimetz
Review by Jessica Carr
Director and writer Amy Seimetz has created a movie that not only perfectly encapsulates the anxiety we are all feeling during the pandemic, but also shows an honest portrayal of her own personal struggle with it.
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Review by Courtney Anderson
This project is not only a visual recreation of Beyoncé’s Lion King album, but it’s also a literal re-telling of the Lion King story. In making Black is King, Beyoncé and her team created a real live-action version of the story, breathing new life into The Lion King in a way that fans of Beyoncé have become familiar with in the past couple of years: grand, majestic, and with Black people in the forefront.
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Vin Diesel stars in director David S. F. Wilson’s Bloodshot
Review by Logan Kenny
Vin Diesel is 52 years old, and he’s as fit as you can be at that age, but after a certain point, the stamina and shape it takes to do stunts every scene for months on end runs out – he can’t do all the same shit that he used to do full time. But with Bloodshot, Vin has made a movie in which for 2 hours, his frame is eternal.
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Vincent Gallo and Chloë Sevigny star in director Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny
Review by Reece Beckett
Vincent Gallo is certainly a director known for his ego. Whether it’s the scene in which he plays himself in Julie Delpy’s 2 Days In New York and buys Delpy’s soul only to keep it in a pouch on his groin, his appearance as ‘Flying Christ’ in the hilariously titled Vincent Gallo as Flying Christ or just his website (particularly the merchandising section – there is some real gold there!), he’s definitely earned that reputation. But his work as an actor and a director often also show a dedication to artistry that knows no bounds.
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Damon Wayans stars in director Spike Lee’s Bamboozled
Retro Review by Will Carr
Many filmmakers spent the year 2000 celebrating the achievements of cinema’s first century, but Spike Lee decided to tackle its failures. Bamboozled, Lee’s fourteenth feature film, is a direct criticism of how Black people and people of color have been consistently degraded and relegated to the sidelines from the beginning.
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Featuring writing by Michael O’Malley, Reid Ramsey, Ash Baker, Nadine Smith, Alison Swafford, Logan Kenny, Miranda Barnewall, and Lucy Palmer
2020 has been a rough year for movie releases. Release dates have been pushed back indefinitely, productions have been halted, and event titles have unceremoniously shuffled onto VOD platforms, making this feel like a year without movies. So at this mid-point in the year, when many outlets ordinarily release their “best of the year so far” listicles, here at Cinematary we’d like to acknowledge the situation by doing something a bit different: we’ve invited our writers to share one or two pieces of non-film media released in 2020 that they’ve personally found comforting amidst all the uncertainty. Below you’ll find writing on music, sports, workout routines, television, and viral videos, all of which we invite you to enjoy with us.
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Lin-Manuel Miranda and Daveed Diggs star in a filmed production of Miranda’s hit broadway show
Review by Alison Swafford
It’s difficult to place a value judgement on the #HamilFilm, as it seems like the people declaring “it is good” and the people declaring “it is bad” often have very different definitions not only of what “good” or “bad” is, but also what “it” is. When I ask myself “Is Hamilton good?,” I think I’m really asking myself three different questions: Is Hamilton a good musical? Is Hamilton a good film? Is Hamilton a good political project? These questions elicit a tricky, often contradictory, mess of responses from me, so for clarity’s sake, I’ll answer them each separately.
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Adèle Haenel and Pauline Acquart star in director Céline Sciamma’s debut Water Lilies
Retro Review / Personal Essay by Paige Taylor
I wish I could sit teenagers down and give them all the wisdom I learned the hard way, answer all the questions they’re too embarrassed to say out loud, and assure them that their road to adulthood might feel shitty and weird but that is 100% expected and normal. There is beauty in this adventure too. Céline Sciamma clearly feels the same way.
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Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Bowie star in director Nagisa Ōshima’s Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
Retro Review by Logan Kenny
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence is maybe the only gay tragedy I’ve seen that doesn’t feel painful, that doesn’t cause a furious ache in my soul whenever I reflect on how many of us are dead. It’s the movie that reminds me that beyond the closet and the tragedy of loss, that there are millions of stories that I will never hear of people that truly loved each other.
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Adepero Oduye and Aasha Davis star in director Dee Rees’s Pariah
Retro Review by Courtney Anderson
Pariah is of the few coming-of-age stories that centers a Black girl, and one of the very few coming-of-age stories that centers a queer person. Pariah ended up being a godsend for me.
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