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Pray Away
(2020)
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Eve Tushnet
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I obviously am down for exposing the evils of conversion therapy, but as a work of art, this is pretty pedestrian, and as reportage, it’s mostly done better elsewhere.
Posted Mar 24, 2023
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Everything Everywhere All at Once
(2022)
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Eve Tushnet
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The filmmakers try to load the entire weight of life, the universe, and everything onto their movie. This is too many things on a bagel.
Posted Mar 24, 2023
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Losing Ground
(1982)
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Eve Tushnet
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It didn’t quite work for me.
Posted Mar 24, 2023
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Let the Fire Burn
(2012)
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Eve Tushnet
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A must-watch if you’re interested in Black American history, post-1968 city governance, or documentary craft.
Posted Mar 24, 2023
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Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.
(2022)
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Eve Tushnet
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Unfortunately the movie mostly avoids the more surreal or mystical possibilities of its satire. I still enjoyed it, for sure, but there are missed opportunities.
Posted Jan 31, 2023
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Black Widow
(1987)
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Eve Tushnet
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Don’t let Winger’s mousy-for-Hollywood appearance fool you: This is definitely a game of cat and other cat! It’s silly and mostly notable for the explicit sapphic overtones.
Posted Jan 31, 2023
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The Wolf of Snow Hollow
(2020)
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Eve Tushnet
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Snow Hollow is willing to name things like “toxic masculinity” and “anger issues” explicitly, but deft and subtle enough to show these abstractions emerging from and intersecting with the werewolf plot naturally.
Posted Jan 31, 2023
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Bent
(1997)
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Eve Tushnet
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There’s something too well-fed in that final moment...
Posted Jan 31, 2023
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My Neighbor Totoro
(1988)
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Eve Tushnet
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The creepy or eerie whimsy of the troll’s world is wonderful, but unlike in Spirited Away, the stakes feel really low–it felt like the movie kept making choices to reassure the imagined child-audience that the world is soft, not scary.
Posted Jan 31, 2023
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Chameleon Street
(1989)
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Eve Tushnet
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A surprise and a treat.
Posted Dec 16, 2022
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Rachel Getting Married
(2008)
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Eve Tushnet
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It is basically a perfect film.
Posted Dec 16, 2022
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'R Xmas
(2001)
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Eve Tushnet
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I always enjoy Ferrara’s low-slung sensibility (and an especially low-slung and sidelong camera here–lotta fragmentary or child’s-eye view shots), but I don’t know that I bought what this film was selling.
Posted Dec 16, 2022
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Spinning Boris
(2003)
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Eve Tushnet
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Goldblum is charming, as always. The cynicism is lighter and frothier than the subject probably deserves...
Posted Dec 16, 2022
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The Final Solution
(1983)
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Eve Tushnet
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The emotional or spiritual arc of the main black character (also based on a real person) is both simplistic and compressed.
Posted Dec 16, 2022
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Mandrake
(2022)
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Eve Tushnet
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By the end I was on board, and could see how the mandrake fits the movie’s themes of bloody birth, something broken and desperate and amoral within maternity, but I’m circling around ways of saying, “This didn’t quite work for me, and I’m not sure why.”
Posted Dec 16, 2022
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Next of Kin
(1982)
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Eve Tushnet
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Spooky, lushly-colored, slight and pleasurable.
Posted Dec 16, 2022
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The Last Unicorn
(1982)
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Eve Tushnet
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The 1982 cartoon adaptation of The Last Unicorn blends genres and eras to bring the shocking challenge of beauty to the screen.
Posted Dec 13, 2022
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Tár
(2022)
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Eve Tushnet
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Field’s film is pulsing, prowling, it feels angry or at least charged with some wild energy: this film is in love with Tár, but also willing to take her to pieces, like a moth who rattles off the entire moral inventory of the flame right before diving in.
Posted Nov 11, 2022
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Monsieur Vincent
(1947)
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Eve Tushnet
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Nowadays it’d be one of those films that wins the Oscar for costuming (if it were American, I mean), but it is better and smarter than that.
Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
(2004)
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Eve Tushnet
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I did not care about these people and their problems even one tiny bit.
Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Coal Miner's Daughter
(1980)
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Eve Tushnet
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Unfortunately the back half of the film is rushed and overstuffed.
Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Class of 1999
(1990)
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Eve Tushnet
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1984 has a certain grim conviction in spite of its soapiness; this felt more soulless, and the action bored me, but I admit I'm not really into that kind of movie as a rule.
Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Collateral
(2004)
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Eve Tushnet
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This was not quite Mann enough for me.
Posted Oct 21, 2022
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The Woodsman
(2004)
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Eve Tushnet
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It’s well-made and haunting, and I’m glad it wasn’t longer.
Posted Oct 21, 2022
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WALL-E
(2008)
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Eve Tushnet
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Clever and endearing. I would not call this essential viewing but I enjoyed it more than I expected.
Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Viva Zapata!
(1952)
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Eve Tushnet
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I mostly didn’t care for Brando’s performance or the execrable, preachy script by John Steinbeck, and these actually good scenes felt like punctuation marks rather than the substance of the film.
Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Benediction
(2021)
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Eve Tushnet
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...the bulk of this movie is about unpleasant things happening that gradually harden Sassoon’s carapace and make him pretty unpleasant in turn, whereas the opening promised a movie about the shattering of that carapace...
Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Spirited Away
(2001)
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Eve Tushnet
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The underlying worldview is… weird...but setting that aside, I loved this and look forward to revisiting it.
Posted Aug 12, 2022
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The Death of Stalin
(2017)
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Eve Tushnet
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Steve Buscemi is just a joy, as always.
Posted Aug 12, 2022
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A Midwinter's Tale
(1995)
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Eve Tushnet
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I didn’t think the film managed the transition from cynical comedy to heartstring-tugging as deftly as S&A usually does–its heartfelt elements were a bit shopworn–but it was still a real pleasure.
Posted Aug 12, 2022
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La Llorona
(1933)
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Eve Tushnet
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Would make a great double-feature with White Zombie, I tell you what...
Posted Aug 12, 2022
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The Black Phone
(2021)
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Eve Tushnet
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I was entirely willing to go where this movie wanted to take me… right up until the end, when it decided to sell the creepy message...
Posted Aug 12, 2022
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Wendy and Lucy
(2008)
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Eve Tushnet
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Promises a harrowing depiction of poverty and its Catch-22s and its moral judgment and shames, and delivers on that, so hey, you can’t say you didn’t know what it would be like.
Posted Aug 12, 2022
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Good Madam
(2021)
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Eve Tushnet
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This is definitely worth a watch if you’re at all interested in the setting or in servant-horror/horrors of class division and colonialism.
Posted Aug 12, 2022
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Elvis
(2022)
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Eve Tushnet
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...it’s grabby and it prowls; and it does have something to say, even if by the end it’s saying it a little too carefully...
Posted Jul 29, 2022
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Times Square
(1980)
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Eve Tushnet
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There are so many iconic love scenes here...
Posted Jul 14, 2022
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We're All Going to the World's Fair
(2021)
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Eve Tushnet
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Really believable portrait of inchoate teenage anger.
Posted Jul 14, 2022
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Last Night in Soho
(2021)
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Eve Tushnet
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Edgar Wright is so good, just so skilled, everything swoops and cuts right when it should.
Posted Jul 14, 2022
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Valley of the Dolls
(1967)
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Eve Tushnet
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The cliches in the addiction storyline land with a real clunk because of the decision to call speed pills “dolls.”
Posted Jul 14, 2022
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Three O'Clock High
(1987)
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Eve Tushnet
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A perfectly serviceable ’80s lockers ‘n’ liplocking flick for those who like such things, utterly lacking what Christians call a conscience or what philosophers call “a point...”
Posted Jul 14, 2022
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Addams Family Values
(1993)
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Eve Tushnet
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A little more uneven than the first installment, but the good bits are iconic.
Posted Jul 14, 2022
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Neptune Frost
(2021)
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Eve Tushnet
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Unfortunately it degenerates into a sort of anchorless ideology, a lot of self-comforting anger and rhetoric and not a lot of depiction of alternative political structures or anything that might force the audience to learn something...
Posted Jul 14, 2022
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Repo Man
(1984)
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Eve Tushnet
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Just like, neon and ranting and ill intentions. I couldn’t enjoy this movie any more if I put it on a plate.
Posted Jul 14, 2022
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Wes Craven's New Nightmare
(1994)
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Eve Tushnet
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This story about stories was so much less interesting than a story about nightmares in suburbia.
Posted Jun 06, 2022
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Silver Bullet
(1985)
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Eve Tushnet
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Silver Bullet ignored some obvious chances to go deeper...
Posted May 23, 2022
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Women's Prison
(2002)
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Eve Tushnet
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This is really a movie driven, as the title indicates, not by plot but by setting.
Posted May 23, 2022
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The Last of Sheila
(1973)
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Eve Tushnet
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The result is a deliciously nasty little bonbon, glossily and showily directed by Herbert Ross.
Posted May 23, 2022
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Shotgun Stories
(2007)
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Eve Tushnet
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There’s not much here beyond the mythologically-rich setup. Once the plot is in motion, it goes through its paces and that’s all.
Posted May 23, 2022
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The Name of the Rose
(1986)
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Eve Tushnet
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James Horner provides excellent music, and Dante "Salo" Ferretti does his usual phenomenal job with the production design.
Posted May 23, 2022
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The Rider Named Death
(2004)
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Eve Tushnet
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Mostly a straightforward story of revolutionary failure–and the slowly-growing acknowledgment that violence inevitably spreads, crossing every moral boundary you think you’ve set, and toppling, as it spreads, some kind of necessary structure in the soul.
Posted May 23, 2022
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