Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro deserves full-throated commendation for potentially introducing the national treasure that was James Baldwin to the masses.
Category: Remember All the Movies, Terry, We’d Go See
A DARK SONG (Liam Gavin)
While Blumhouse Productions may command most of the public’s attention, IFC Midnight keeps churning out equally, if not more noteworthy horror flicks, such as Liam Gavin’s A Dark Song.
THE PROMISE (Terry George)
I was initially going to call back to a repeated formulation of mine by describing Terry George’s The Promise as “Masterpiece Theatre (Terry’s specialty!), Armenian-Genocide-with-a-ginormous-budget edition,” but honestly, likening this schlock to a quasi-hallowed institution feels unfair to the latter.
ALL THESE SLEEPLESS NIGHTS (Michal Marczak)
Every moment of Michal Marczak’s All These Sleepless Nights (great title, by the by) is a symbolic riddle left to the audience to piece together for themselves.
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THE TRANSFIGURATION (Michael O’Shea)
Michael O’Shea’s The Transfiguration is basically the second American remake of Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In (namechecked TWICE here).
TICKLING GIANTS (Sara Taksler)
Bassem Youssef, the focus of Sara Taksler’s Tickling Giants, is an essential figure to know nowadays (talk about taking real artistic risks), and he kind of makes the documentary a must-see…but it would’ve been more compelling with some semblance of objectivity; not a single competing perspective is presented.
THE VOID (Jeremy Gillespie, Steven Kostanski)
The craziest creature design this side of Guillermo del Toro can be found in Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski’s The Void, but it fails to overcome the worst attributes of the horror genre that pervade the rest: on-the-nose dialogue, cardboard-cutout characters, canned overacting, a bafflingly overcomplicated plot that’s incoherently told, beaten-to-death aesthetics, an overwhelming feeling of apathy regarding what’s going to happen and who it’s going to happen to, and heavily-borrowed mythology.
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FIFTY SHADES DARKER (James Foley)
I’m well-aware that James Foley’s Fifty Shades Darker is objectively terrible, but that still doesn’t diminish the unspeakable joy I derive from sex-filled mainstream releases.
PERSONAL SHOPPER (Olivier Assayas)
I could write a dissertation on the layered complexity of Olivier Assayas’ Personal Shopper, one of 2017’s absolute best.
RAW (Julia Ducournau)
Julia Ducournau’s Raw is a sensationalist and sensational allegory for mankind and womankind’s tenuous relationship with their ever-present animalism.
Write All Nite 