“You can be a hot mess express and still leave the world better than you found it.” – You’re Wrong About (Princess Diana)
Spencer is personal and overwhelming, a feverish fantasy that imprisons Diana, forcing her to escape. Her story is transformed into a mythical confrontation between past, present and a desolating future that allows her to move forward stronger and surer of herself.
On Christmas Eve 1991, Diana is the last to arrive at Sandringham. William and Harry are…
The Bridges of Madison County is domestic and gentle, almost too intimate to be portrayed on camera and to be seen by so many.
An Iowa housewife, home alone while her family travels to the Illinois State Fair, experiences four days of adventurous bliss after she meets a photographer in town to take (no, make) pictures of the famed covered bridges of Madison County for National Geographic; it’s the sketch of an escapist fantasy, but that’s not what Eastwood focuses…
Opulence and kitsch meet in House of Gucci. Lavish parties, bubble baths and champagne serve as the backdrop for a caricature of betrayal, murder and family drama, displayed as proudly as a Gucci belt. There’s no place for subtlety here. Needle-drops, montages and characters that dominate every scene with their excess leave none. But should there even be? Stripped of its kitsch, House of Gucci has little to account for. It moves from event to event to depict rather than…
The French Dispatch is charm and warmth personified, a comforting collage of stories, places and people. Wes Anderson seems to have perfected his craft here, finding a mode of storytelling that accommodates his off-beat sensibilities rather than fitting them into what could be deemed “conventional”. He brings a magazine to life, and we are left to flip through its pages, marveling at the mysteries and curiosities they hold, and at the bright and vivid illustrations that make the world a…
I was looking forward to Eternals because it promised something different. From the start, Chloé Zhao was an ambitious choice. Her vision, so tenderly affectionate of everything that makes us human, is at odds with the MCU, more interested in action than characters, in the future than the present. To reconcile them would require ambition, and I believed Eternals could be special. But Eternals proved more ambitious in concept than execution. Though exploring unknown parts of the MCU, it’s nothing…
Living as a nomad means sacrifice. It comes with uncertainty and a lack of stability that’s difficult to understand for outsiders. But for nomads, it’s a trade-off that brings beauty and freedom. They carry their home in their hearts and the people they love in their memories, and for many of them, it’s enough, as they make their way from town to town through the American West.
Nomadland is a tender look at this way of life, centering on Fern,…
