"The opening gesture of What You Gonna Do When the World's on Fire? consists of a move from the outward to the inward. A hard cut yields the first shot in the film, following an adolescent Mardi Gras Indian as he bounds down a suburban street, brandishing a sword and chanting along to a pounding drum beat. This restless image gives way to enclosure, as two young brothers cautiously make their way through a flickering haunted house, with the younger…

Immensely honored to make my Reverse Shot debut with a review of this flawed but well-meaning film.

"Lulu Wang’s The Farewell wastes no time in foregrounding its emotional intentions: its opening moments play out after the phrase “Based on an Actual Lie” appears onscreen. This text card—also prominently used in the film’s marketing—underscores the premise: a family hosts a faux wedding in order to pay its matriarch, diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer, one final collective visit. They have concealed the…

Batman v Superman is a brutal film, but not in its attitudes towards the narrative, the characters, or the viewer. Instead, it is astounding in the frank, unrestrained, yet almost impressionistic approach towards the subject matter and the weighty themes at hand. Snyder and his collaborators are unblinking in their depiction of the violence and lack of heroics that take place in a changed, darker world that in many, many ways reflects our own, but, incredibly, make them palatable in…