Contrary to the writer of the new film's, the original Suspiria is so great precisely because it is so narratively and thematically minimal. By treating the material as some long-lost fairy tale, it leaves plenty of space for Argento's maximal style to make his original story feel more like a bold revision of an existing source. As such, the original film comes across as a more daring adaptation than the film that actually adapts the material, which replaces Argento's bold…

Coogler's Creed is one of the best films of its kind, a work that confronted and gently but pointedly revised the racist underpinnings of the Rocky franchise and then happened to make the best movie in the whole series by its own rules. Black Panther, by contrast, is the latest reminder, after a few wilder, looser entries in the MCU, that when it comes to Marvel, the house always wins. Glacially paced and burdened with action so busy yet clumsy…

It's easy, if one only ever has to suffer a few times a year the no-budget, no-talent indies dumped on one-week NY runs and burned onto screener discs, to have a charmed view of what constitutes a bad film. Truth be told, with the number of films produced domestically exploding in recent years thanks to mass proliferation of acceptable-quality, cheap DV, it's a good bet that the vast majority of American movies made each year now consist of films made…