Rolled out as a dramatic love story in its first trailer many people, myself included, gave little attention to the fact that Sam Levinson was the mind behind the film. It would be absurd to think the guy who made Assassination Nation, an ultraviolent Japanese-style girl boss movie tackling social media hysteria, and Euphoria, an…
This year has brought us a lot of unexpected and amazing films, but I don’t think Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is arriving with low expectations. As the final performance on film from Chadwick Boseman and a continuation of August Wilson adaptations following Fences, the latest Netflix original has been gathering buzz for quite some time.…
Six years after he made his last film, Gone Girl, and transitioned to television, David Fincher is back with Mank, a film that almost everyone will also be watching on the small screen. Though I would normally stand by my thinking that every film is better in a cinema which has led me to see…
Anyone who knows me well has likely accepted the fact that I hold no truck for the sentimental. Any kind of romanticised emotional mugging just rubs me up completely the wrong way, and a swell of strings in a film is usually accompanied by rising bile from the pit of my stomach. The way to…
I have found a love for the modern Western in the past few years. From direct reimaginings of classics like True Grit to genre blends like Bone Tomahawk, modern cowboy stories are making a grand return. The latest entry into the chronicles of the 21st century rancher is Concrete Cowboy, the feature debut of Ricky…
Writer/director/actor Jim Cummings had one of the best sleeper hits of 2018 with Thunder Road. Adapted from his short film of the same name, Cummings’ performance is a tour de force in the story of a police officer overcoming his internal turbulence when his professional and personal life begin to crumble. The Wolf of Snow…
“When you take 20 million black people and make them fight all your wars and pick all your cotton and never give them any real recompense, sooner or later their allegiance towards you is going to wear thin.” Spike Lee opens up his latest joint, Da 5 Bloods, with a shockingly well timed, eye-opening montaged…
Adolescence is a troubling time for almost everyone. Our teenage years are a time for growth, but that growth often comes from negative experiences. We learn about our place in the world, assess our past selves, and try to move on to become better. If we’re lucky, we overcome those negative events in our past…
Kitty Green’s new film The Assistant is a searing and confrontational work that offers a stark look at a system that allows for continued abuse, told from the perspective of a ground-level employee. Though he’s never named, the high-level film executive at the film’s center is clearly intended to be an analog of Harvey Weinstein,…
Four years after the cinematic catastrophe that is Suicide Squad, Harley Quinn — one of the most interesting female comic book characters who unfortunately got sidelined for the most part in the aforementioned title — finally has her chance to showcase how badass she is in Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One…
Cinema Etc. 