[Warning — Mild Spoilers Ahead] Families are, of course, a microcosm of humanity in disaster movies. Usually one of their number—invariably the father—comes across warning signs that something terrible threatens their species and/or planet. They are also usually promptly ignored.…
Movie Review: ‘Camino’
[Minor Spoilers Ahead] Avery lives behind her camera. It’s not that she wants to, she needs to. A self-proclaimed “woman without a country,” she has spent over a decade working as a war photographer, capturing an endless procession of cruelties,…
Movie Review: ‘Emelie’
[Mild Spoilers Ahead] Ten minutes into Michael Thelin’s Emelie, I felt queasy and apprehensive. Thirty minutes in I was squirming in my seat, desperately trying to remember the last time a film had made me so uncomfortable—finally settling on Lars…
Movie Review: ‘A Country Called Home’
You see towns just like it all through the South, or at least I did growing up in Texas: loose clusters of flat, one-story buildings lining flat, empty streets stretching into infinity. There’s always a water tower — usually the…
Movie Review – ‘Admiral’
Roel Reiné’s new historical epic Admiral was originally titled Michiel de Ruyter upon its original release in its native country of the Netherlands. One can’t help but feel that the title was changed for two reasons. First, big American releases…
Movie Review: ‘The Witch’
In my senior year of college, one of my history classes embarked on an in-depth study of the Salem Witch trials where we read over many of the case’s original historical documents: settlement maps, population dispersal charts, census reports, church…
Movie Review: ‘Forsaken’
One morning, the son arrives, face downcast and repentant. The father meets the prodigal on the doorstep, stern and unforgiving. “Your mother has passed.” “I didn’t know. How did she die?” “In my arms. Begging for you.” The father, a…
