Category: reviews

david bax / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review

September 19, 2019

Where’s My Roy Cohn?: Devil in the Details, by David Bax

“He was like a caged animal,” says one of the many talking heads interviewed in Matt Tyrnauer’s Where’s My Roy Cohn?. And with this, right at the beginning of the film, the sick mythologizing of Cohn begins. Tyrnauer seems, rightly,...

david bax / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review

September 18, 2019

Loro: Unstable, Genius, by David Bax

This review originally ran as a part of our TIFF 2018 coverage. Back in 2008, Paolo Sorrentino and actor Toni Servillo made a film called Il Divo, in which Servillo portrayed former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti. That movie was more...

2019 / david bax / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review / tiff / tiff 2019

September 14, 2019

TIFF 2019: First Love, by David Bax

Takashi Miike’s world is one of commonplace sociopathy. In his newest film, First Love, as in his others, the criminals aren’t just criminals. They’re ice cold sadists and slavering maniacs. And yet, also as in so many of his other...

david bax / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review

September 12, 2019

The Weekend: Agua Amarga, by David Bax

This review originally ran as a part of our AFI Fest 2018 coverage. Stella Meghie’s The Weekend stumbles clumsily out of the gate. To some extent, this might be a matter of personal taste as I can count on one...

david bax / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review

September 12, 2019

Monos: Lords of Chaos, by David Bax

Technically, the aspect ratio of Alejandro Landes’ confrontational, unnerving Monos is 2.35:1. But the often crepuscular cinematography of Jasper Wolf makes the frame shapeless and dissolute, informed by the limbo between light and dark that creeps in around the edges....

2019 / david bax / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review / tiff / tiff 2019

September 12, 2019

TIFF 2019: A Hidden Life, by David Bax

Terrence Malick’s transcendent A Hidden Life is informed and bolstered in every way by Christian philosophy and yet, despite including numerous men of cloth as characters, none of them has the fortitude to fulfill the purpose of their vocation. But...

2019 / david bax / featured / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review / tiff / tiff 2019

September 12, 2019

TIFF 2019: Jojo Rabbit, by David Bax

Jojo Rabbit‘s opening titles play out against stock footage of Germans “heil”ing Adolf Hitler soundtracked by The Beatles singing “Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand” and the sound of screaming fans. There is satirical potential in reducing Hitler to the level...

2019 / david bax / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review / tiff / tiff 2019

September 11, 2019

TIFF 2019: Ema, by David Bax

With Ema, Pablo Larraín, plumbs the harrowing depths of depression. But he’s also made a movie that would be fun to watch with the sound off. From the opening shot of a burning traffic light dripping flames into a midnight...

2019 / david bax / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review / tiff / tiff 2019

September 10, 2019

TIFF 2019: Knives Out, by David Bax

From, I suppose, a marketing standpoint, the major selling point of Rian Johnson’s Knives Out is its cast. The Hercule Poirot-esque private investigator is played by Daniel Craig; his police detective liaison is LaKeith Stanfield; and the family of wealthy...

2019 / david bax / movies / reviews / Theatrical Review / tiff / tiff 2019

September 9, 2019

TIFF 2019: The Lighthouse, by David Bax

Robert Eggers’ thrilling, garish, wonderfully off-putting and hilarious portrait of insanity, The Lighthouse, starts with a churning, percussive score indicating the two main characters’ level-headed determination on their way to get a job done. That sense is comically short-lived, though,...

Category: reviews

Where’s My Roy Cohn?: Devil in the Details, by David Bax

Loro: Unstable, Genius, by David Bax

TIFF 2019: First Love, by David Bax

The Weekend: Agua Amarga, by David Bax

Monos: Lords of Chaos, by David Bax

TIFF 2019: A Hidden Life, by David Bax

TIFF 2019: Jojo Rabbit, by David Bax

TIFF 2019: Ema, by David Bax

TIFF 2019: Knives Out, by David Bax

TIFF 2019: The Lighthouse, by David Bax

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