REVIEW: Promising Young Woman [2020]

You didn’t think this was the end, did you? Has anyone created a drinking game for Emerald Fennell‘s audacious feature directorial debut Promising Young Woman yet? If not, I’m going to pitch that it surround the universal facial tic Cassandra Thomas’ (Carey Mulligan) prey deliver upon saying something they mean before floundering in an attempt to backtrack because that thing shouldn’t be said aloud. It’s usually accompanied by an extended “Uhhh” or “Wait a second” or “What I mean is”—the hamster wheel inside their brains working overtime to salvage the…

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Online Film Critics Society Ballot 2018

Below is my December 27th ballot for the 22nd annual Online Film Critics Society Awards honoring movies released domestically in the United States during the 2018 calendar year. Each category is ordered according to my preferential rankings. Group winners are labeled in red. (No option to abstain was supplied this year.)

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REVIEW: Eighth Grade [2018]

Gucci! The transition between middle and high school is weird and frightening for everyone—those who disagree are lying. It’s crazy how different those two worlds prove since elementary and middle are really quite similar. Some crave this shift, desperate for a new beginning. Others dread it because they know the pecking order restarts once multiple schools converge. But then there are also those like Kayla Day (Elsie Fisher) who don’t know what to expect because change is scary and the status quo insufferably depressing. So she decides to get a…

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REVIEW: The Big Sick [2017]

“Always with the comedy” A lot of romantic comedies release each year—a lot. And they’re generally all the same with characters built from stereotypes rather than a writer’s personal experience. The ones that stick out are therefore those that arrive from the heart with something true to say. They’re the few possessing the honesty to show love’s ebbs and flows as well as the reality that it won’t always prevail. Sometimes the journey of the central couple lies in their growth to move onto other things, their brief collision providing…

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REVIEW: Rough Night [2017]

“Our kids are going to play together” I wasn’t expecting much out of “Broad City” co-writer/director Lucia Aniello‘s feature length debut Rough Night, but even low expectations run into the possibility of not quite being met. A big part of this stemmed from my anticipation of a dark comedy, one that might have the chops to rival a personal favorite with a similar plot device in Very Bad Things. I wanted to see these bachelorette revelers go to pitch-black places in order to mine uncomfortable laughs rather than lazy gags…

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