From the first time I saw it in theaters, on the day it was released in 2013, I have had conflicting feelings about it, just as I have about the artist that stands behind it. But this empty, semi-pointless, semi-comedy has encapsulated a moment in early-aughts pop culture history that isn’t as trashy as its reality television show counterpart, but it’s most definitely just as fun.

Both “Somewhere” and “Marie Antoinette” have delved into the world around celebrity but “The Bling Ring” is the first of writer-director Sofia Coppola’s film that delves into not the celebrities themselves, but the people that make them famous. “The Bling Ring” follows a group of teenagers as they commit the infamous Hollywood Hills Burglaries that occurred between 2008 and 2009. What begins as fun, breaking in and stealing high-end merchandise from en vogue celebrities — making themselves at home in Paris Hilton’s “club room” or in front of Lindsay Lohan’s vanity mirror — becomes a scandal with major repercussions. They were coined by the media as “The Bling Ring”.

Members of this squad include Rebecca Ahn (Katie Chang), the leader whose terrible non-acting skills are meant to read as emptily sociopathic; Marc Hall (Israel Broussard), the self-conscious new kid in town who “gets involved with the wrong crowd”; Nicki Moore (Emma Watson), smoking black tar heroin, tattoo-studded body clad in a pink Juicy Couture sweatsuit; her surrogate sister, Sam Moore (Taissa Farmiga); and Chloe Trainer (Claire Julien) whose blonde, unbothered, and couldn’t care less about rules — she even manages to gloat when she totals her car and gets arrested for driving under the influence.

These characters inhabit a version of Los Angeles we rarely see on film. Their world is the stifling San Fernando Valley, close to the action but not enough to be directly involved. Thus, we’re steeped in their specific brand of suburban voyeurism by way of paparazzi photos and social media, left to wonder what life is like on the other side of the Sepulveda Pass. The lifestyle they crave is one that Coppola herself is intimately familiar with, being the daughter of internationally acclaimed film director Francis Ford Coppola (“Apocalypse Now”, “The Godfather”), who also served as executive producer with his production company, American Zoetrope.

They live a life of little repercussion and blatant excess. They shop at Kitson. They toss designer names around — Miu Miu, Chanel, Balmain. If your car is left unlocked, they’ll steal your cocaine and your credit cards. They don’t wait in lines outside clubs and bottle service is a given. These were the type of kids that were constantly talked about in high school, the ones you sort of wanted to be but were also too afraid of what that might entail. And all this backed by a showy soundtrack : Kanye West, 2 Chainz, Phoenix, Sleigh Bells.

What many critics failed to realize is how closely Coppola echoes the media of these teenagers. It was 2008 and these high schoolers were addicted to posting provocative Facebook statuses, taking Blackberry selfies, getting bottle service — everything is very well-documented. Coppola had seemingly endless material with which to base her film on, and takes that to incredibly faithful heights. Her script is adapted from the Vanity Fair exposé entitled, “The Suspects Wore Louboutins” by Nancy Jo Sales. (The journalist makes an appearance in the film, portraying herself, interviewing the teenagers.) Coppola even recreated Nick Prugo’s black-and-white Photobooth video in which he smokes a bowl, dances slightly, and lip-syncs to Ester Dean’s “Drop It Low” but with her actor proxy. Exchanges between the characters Nicki and Sam are near-verbatim to their real life versions, Alexis Neiers and Tess Taylor, as depicted on their E! Network reality show “Pretty Wild”.

In “Pretty Wild”, camera crews follow Alexis as she gets arrested, makes public statements in over-sized sunglasses, dutifully takes her Adderall, and holds hands in a New Age prayer circle with her sisters and delusional mother — and in Coppola’s rendition, we get the same. However, in “The Bling Ring” this is interpreted as satire, credited to Coppola’s creativity when, in actuality, it’s just a higher budget remake of the E! version. Supposedly, it’s meant to be ironic when Chloe cruises down PCH in her Lexus and raps along to Rick Ross’ “9 Piece”. This appropriation exists in a similar vein of white girls who wear headdresses and bindis at Coachella. But whether or not this possible satire is intentional, is left up to the viewer’s interpretation.

Emma Watson’s performance as Nicki, in one of her first roles after the conclusion of the Harry Potter movie franchise, was lauded by critics for how different it was from the role she’d become known for. However, her English accent, failingly masked under Valley Girl speak, distracts from her performance, especially when she utters dialogue like “C’mon, let’s go to Paris’. I wanna rob.” without an ounce of irony.

Richard Linklater’s “Dazed and Confused” or Harmony Korine’s “Spring Breakers” are steeped in full-fledged nihilism that serves as an outright and somewhat terrifying depiction of today’s youth. But what both of these films have in common that “The Bling Ring” lacks is a sense of humor — although it would have to be a dark one to truly sell it.

Once their fun is over, ours is too. The last twenty-or-so minutes of the film focus on the police’s investigation, the court proceedings, and subsequent imprisonment. It’s a wannabe meaningful meditation on Hollywood excess, which leaves the audience feeling as empty as the story itself. “The Bling Ring” is vacant but pretty, just as its subjects are. Just as “Heathers” and, more recently, “Thoroughbreds” take us into situations that, as average audience members, are inaccessible to us, this movie takes us along on the debauchery and let’s us revel in it for an hour and a half. It’s pure wish fulfillment, which is what undeniably makes it so much fun.

The film takes place in a mid-1960s version of Paris that feels like a small town — the characters meander through a handful of locations, run into the same people everywhere they go. Graveyards are common thoroughfare and each store’s sign is charmingly hand-painted. At the forefront, are two men — the artist and the observer. In the final days of his Paris trip, where he interviewed acclaimed artist Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush), New York writer James Lord (Armie Hammer) agrees to sit for a portrait — one that we know, from the opening minutes and title itself, will be his last. Giacometti tells Lord this process should only require a few hours of his time but it turns out to be much lengthier and emotionally exhausting than Lord expected. At first, Lord is thrilled to have a front row seat to witness Giacometti’s eccentricities— every freak out, exclamation of expletives, and flagrant dismissal of others. But what begins as curiosity fueled by admiration, develops to reveal the darkness beneath the famous painter’s gruff facade. In the time he spends posing upon the stool, observing his surroundings, Lord learns more about Giacometti and the characters that populate his life than through their previous conversations.

We get a sense of who Giacometti is from his actions and we want to think they’re motivated by something worth watching. When he receives millions of francs for his artwork, he hides it in his studio. Without hesitation, he’ll buy his mistress a car but refuses to buy his wife a new coat. He intentionally lives in squalor, despite his success, forcing his chosen bohemian lifestyle onto his brother and wife. We wonder whether he’s masochistic or just horribly self-centered — possibly both. He’s grumpy, his speech permeated by noncommittal grunts, a cigarette dangling from his lips. His brother, Diego (Tony Shalhoub), said it best: “My brother can only be happy when he’s completely and terribly uncomfortable.” But what benefit is there in forcing the audience to suffer too?

This is the fourth feature film Tucci has directed, his first being “Big Night” (1996) in which he also worked with Tony Shalhoub. However, this is the first film that he has not also acted in. Tucci’s screenplay does not give the audience much drama to hold onto, nor has he created a cast of compelling, empathetic characters. The only character that we can feel something for is Giacometti’s wife, Annette Arm, who’s captivatingly played with caged anxiety by French actress Sylvie Testud.

Although its characters are few, each actor brings unfiltered energy and distinct mannerisms to their roles. Clémence Poésy plays Caroline, a local prostitute and Giacometti’s mistress, with painful exuberance — never straying from the manic pixie dream girl trope. Armie Hammer, cast in a role that’s become quite typical for him — attractive and suave with excellent diction — remains almost a stranger to us beyond his stoic demeanor. (I’m impatiently awaiting the day when Hammer is given the opportunity equivalent of Heath Ledger’s The Joker to prove the depth of his talent — or lack thereof.) This unloveable cast of characters leaves us hungry for substance, something to make us want to continue watching this movie. In the numerous times when Giacometti paints over his work, to start clean, we can’t help but empathize with his subject in the worst way — just as Lord does, we groan at this setback, wondering how much longer this could possibly take.

Veteran music composer Evan Lurie’s score brightens up the numerous scenes in which we cut back and forth between macro-inserts of Lord’s face, Giacometti’s wrinkled and focused visage, and his deft paint brush that dances across the canvas. With each sequence, the instruments seem to mimic the motions, putting us even further in the artist’s perspective. The camerawork, overseen by cinematographer Danny Cohen, is just as shaky as the fumbling artist himself. Cohen previously proved his artful cinematic perspective in European period films such as “The King’s Speech”, “The Danish Girl”, and “Les Misérables” but seems to flail within the confines of this project. Although it’s James’ voiceover we hear intermittently, the camera makes us believe we are in Giacometti’s perspective. The pacing is stagnant and slow-moving. Everything on screen is either the dark warm grey of wet clay or the stark white of when it’s baked. We get to know James’ face nearly as well as the artist himself — every centimeter of his stubbled chin and nostrils.

This confusion of character perspective only adds to the perplexing idea of whom Tucci wants us to sympathize with. Or, are we supposed to remain objective, neither on Lord or Giacometti or even his wife’s side? Are we merely supposed to look upon these people, observe the few weeks in their lives and then leave, just as Lord does? “Final Portrait” reads like a play, stiff and monotonous, with our characters held at a distance so we can not see this film’s true flaws up close.

“Final Portrait” is now playing in select theaters.

O n its surface, “Red Sparrow” is a strange and disorienting combination of existing works. It reads like a greatest hits playlist of movies that have come before with shocking moments heavy-handedly dispersed to distract from its lack of originality. Beyond these diversions — choreographed fight scenes and careless espionage — this movie’s core is feminism — as told by a man. Think “Black Swan” meets “The Handmaid’s Tale”, but with none of the smart social commentary of the latter that justifies the physical and emotional violence.

In modern day Moscow, Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) is a successful, adored prima ballerina who lives with her sickly mother. After a startling career-ending incident, Dominika finds herself on the verge of losing her apartment and her mom’s in-home care, both of which are paid for by the Bolshoi Ballet Company. When an ultimatum appears by way of her unsettlingly attentive uncle, Ivan Dimitrevich Egorov (Matthias Schoenaerts), she accepts. Chosen for their “beauty and strength”, Dominika is sent to a special school for “sparrows”: covert Russian intelligence agents who use their bodies and minds to manipulate information from powerful political figures.

There, she and the other recruits are trained in physical combat and sexual eloquence. Their boundaries are pushed to their breaking point but Dominika remains morally steadfast, clinging to her former self, as her mother instructed her to. Once released from school, Dominika is quickly relocated to Budapest where she is appointed to gain intelligence on an American CIA agent, Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), and finds herself immediately drawn to him. From there, things get just as complicated as we expect.

From the opening moments, we’re immersed in this cinematic world: bitingly chilly, filled with handwritten secret codes and Cossack hats. There is no room to mistake where we are. In this world, there are no boundaries, only semblances of them—motivated by the physically cold, unfriendly environment. The only place Dominika can feel truly comfortable is beside her mother in bed, a warmth she desperately tries to attain throughout the film’s 141 minutes.

In the life of a sparrow, violence is par for the course — their “bodies belong to the state”, merely pawns in the SVR’s plans, just as their lives are at the will of communism. No one can be trusted. Sex is a game, unwillingly played.

In thigh-high leather boots, with deft eyes peeking through bangs — first brunette, then blonde — Jennifer Lawrence takes on her most daring role yet. She told CBS’ 60 Minutes that taking on this character, who disrobes entirely in more than one scene, helped her overcome the trauma she acquired after the 2014 nude photo leak. Unfortunately, her genuine effort exists within this ill-devised cinematic effort. Dominika, who walks surprisingly well in four-inch heels for someone whose leg was broken just months ago, seems to solely exist as a sexual icon, a physical representation of the male fantasy. There are only hints of a backstory. Her supposed layers are meant to help us sympathize with her, justify the acts that follow. She’s almost entirely void of personality or character: we’re told several times that she has a temper, that she’s feisty, but only really get to see it in one, jarringly violent scene. The impression her thinly-laid portrayal exudes is parallel to the way her character is treated within the movie.

By the time the ending credits roll, one thing can be determined for sure: Dominika is there to be desired — nothing more.

Director Francis Lawrence also collaborated with Jennifer Lawrence on “The Hunger Games” movie series, where they developed a close artistic working relationship. Jennifer Lawrence was the only actor he considered for the leading role; she was first to see and give notes on the movie in its entirety, a position of creative power that is relatively unusual to be given to an actor.

Interestingly enough, Francis Lawrence gained acclaim for directing music videos for pop icons such as Beyoncé, Britney Spears, and Jennifer Lopez — but that type of style and imagination do not carry over into this.

The Vienna-born director adapted the film from a book of the same name, which was written by a former CIA agent Jason Matthews and published in 2013. Although true to the source material, the locale seemingly acts a narrative shortcut, playing on the American audience’s innate fear of communism and Russia’s stoic, authoritative appearance in the media.

The high point for the film are the visuals. With its multi-million dollar budget, production designer Maria Djurkovic, who was the creative visionary behind tonally similar period pieces such as “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and “The Imitation Game”, crafts a world that straddles both economic extremities of Moscow: the baroque and the grime. From the first few scenes, the golden decadence of the opera house clashes with the dingy subway tiles of an underground tunnel, establishing the divide that Dominika stands upon the precipice of, at the will of the Bolshoi Ballet. Under Djurkovic’s supervision, each location boasts gorgeous, muted colors and intricate wallpapers which effortlessly fall into place alongside the bleak cityscape, blanketed in snow.

Just as there’s no purpose for unsolicited nudity and violence, nor for said events to take place in Russia, “Red Sparrow” adds nothing to the existing cinematic landscape. By the closing scenes, what Francis Lawrence is trying to say with this film remains muddled beneath forced accents, unapologetic sexuality, and ubiquitous violence. Perhaps he’s trying to claim that sex is the most powerful ammunition — that the most intimate shreds of knowledge can be uncovered when actions are aimed at one’s weakest point: desire.

“Red Sparrow” is now playing in theaters nationwide.

What started off in mid-2014 as a web series on Vice’s food-focused Youtube channel Munchies, became its own program in 2016 when it was transferred to the company’s premium cable network, Viceland. In each episode of “Fuck, That’s Delicious”, we travel through the United States on a narrative that’s as meandering as the tour route itself. During its first season, we follow underground rap sensation Action Bronson on his tour to support his second studio album “Mr. Wonderful”. The 34-year-old New Yorker exudes easy confidence in his taste and expertise, while remaining modest and approachable. Efficacious and likable, Bronson connects with everyone wherever he goes; he blends in at both the upscale hipster restaurants as well as the screen-door-fronted neighborhood spots. Flanked by his entourage, they smoke joints, sip Hennessy, and sample culinary excellence from a wide variety of establishments: perhaps it’s GQ’s latest acclaimed D.C. brewpub or a local Atlanta barbecue joint. To each, Bronson and his crew savor every morsel of flavor the locale has to offer.

There’s no filter here; we’re meant to feel as though we’re one of the men, taking massive bong rips on the tour bus beside them. Each scene is peppered with curse words, barely masked by the audio censorship in place to pacify the FCC. The unassuming, vérité quality of the images — flitting between backstage performance footage to blurred road shots en route to their destination, all interspersed with scenes pertaining to neither tour nor food— effectively immerses us in their world. But what this program lacks, is substance. It’s “Almost Famous” — if it were directed by a recent film school graduate who fancies himself an auteur after a dozen or so skateboard videos.

Although it exists alongside programs like the less-popular but more critically renowned “Gaycation” and “Woman with Gloria Steinem”, “Fuck, That’s Delicious” remains a testament to Vice’s primary demographic. In this, we can inherently identify what kind of content their audience prefers (weed, girls, carbs, etc.) and who exactly they want the story to be told by (straight, cisgender white men). This program should leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that the male-dominated culture that Vice has become infamous for — dirty jokes and click-bait headlines — is most definitely still alive and well. It seems as though Viceland, shrouded behind it’s desire to appear radical, is ultimately subscribing to its ideals of the past.

Above all, “Fuck, That’s Delicious” is a dish best served while extremely high, staring glassy-eyed and half-focused at your laptop screen through a cloud of marijuana smoke.

All 21 episodes are now streaming on Viceland.

O n August 21st, 2015, aboard a train that was travelling from Amsterdam to Paris, three American men thwarted a Moroccan man’s attempt to hold its passengers at gunpoint. The perpetrator, Ayoub El Khazzani, 25, was armed with over 300 rounds of ammunition, and claimed robbery was his intent, not terrorism as assumed. The French government awarded the American, British, and French men involved in the prevention with the country’s highest accolade, The Legion of Honour, for their bravery.

This breakdown of the dramatic incident aboard the train is fact. They’re not hard to come by either; at the time, it was highly publicized by numerous international media outlets. The American men involved even wrote a book about it, with the help of author Jeffrey E. Stern. Several of these facts, however, are omitted or brushed aside in veteran director Clint Eastwood’s latest cinematic endeavor. This rendition discredits the other men who assisted with the citizen’s arrest in favor of the hard-working, God-fearing, all-American boys that are supposed to be our heroes. After all, creative license is totally justified, right? If the writers of “Darkest Hour” can completely make up an event that alters history, why can’t this film blur a few lines too?

Released nationwide last Friday, February 9th, “The 15:17 to Paris”, puts forth a painstakingly dedicated effort to imitate the past. (Emphasis on “pain”.) But it begs the question, where do we draw the line when “art imitates life”? In what could be referred to as a gimmick, a stunt, or — someone who is nicer than this critic — could call an “experiment”, Eastwood used the actual people involved to portray themselves — and not just the three leads. Yes, even the French civilian who was shot, Mark Moogalian, his wife that cried over him as he bled profusely from the neck, and the medical technician that first attended to him play themselves. Because why not? What better way is there to recover from a traumatic event than to reenact it in a hyper-real on-camera scenario?

Director Clint Eastwood is no stranger to strong men exuding courage in situations that would make most cower. His last two features, “Sully” and “American Sniper”, have followed a similar format, the latter of which receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Stone, Skarlatos, and Sadler’s performances do the film a disservice — by no means would it have become perfect if professional actors were cast, ones that could truly carry the weight of the film, but it certainly would have made it more bearable.

“15:17” doesn’t quite know what it wants to be. It’s part biopic, part road movie, and part war movie; it draws inspiration from each but does none particularly well.

We follow Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler, and Spencer Stone from childhood, up to the very brief incident that caused this movie to be made. In the opening scene, we cut between ill-composed shots of the friends cruising in a convertible through their hometown of Sacramento. With a voiceover that never appears again, it establishes from the get-go that these are three, good ol’ American boys and we should love them for that — no questions asked.

We cut back in time to 2005, when Spencer and Alek are kids, obsessed with anything that symbolizes American masculinity. Their fixation lands especially on the military; they love to “play war”. Spencer has Air Force planes above his bed, tiny toy soldiers on his side table, and a poster for Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket” on his wall. The kids are supposed to be portrayed as scrappy but lovable, their language peppered with cuss-words: they’re the boys from “Stranger Things” with none of the charm. In junior high, they’re seen defiantly wearing camouflage-printed t-shirts with their gym uniform and introducing themselves with their last name first. (i.e. “Skarlato, Alek!”)

At home, Spencer shows Alek and Anthony his large collection of plastic guns, including a dauntingly large AK-47. With other movies that came before, from “Elephant” to “We Need to Talk About Kevin”, we’re conditioned to view these childhood scenes as warning signs, the indicator of an oncoming cautionary tale. We’re accustomed to processing this backstory as an explanation for why our leads are going to commit a horrifying act later on. The only element that misleads us from thinking these boys will do something terrible later in life is the absence of a foreboding drone soundtrack. So, with Vegas, Orlando, and San Bernardino hovering overhead, what does Eastwood want us to think?

For the greater part of the second act, we follow Stone and Skarlatos’ plight through the military — neither of which are particularly good at their roles. Sadler disappears almost entirely except for a wayward Skype call. (He is, after all, what NPR critic Glen Weldon calls “da other friend”.) We then embark on a fratty but eminently boring Eurotrip, one we’d rather have stayed home from. Disjointedly fumbling from Rome to Venice to Amsterdam (or was it Berlin?), several nameless female characters are objectified, their presence serving no purpose but to prove to us that the men are desirable. However, their lack of charisma and screen-presence lead us to think the opposite. (Dear Clint, FYI: we are now in the Post-Weinstien Era and up-skirt shots are no longer OK. See: “Justice League”.)

O n the whole, the film seems be an imitation of Richard Linklater. In movies like “Before Sunrise” and even “Boyhood” Linklater has mastered the art of observational, naturalistic, character-driven scenes, slices of beautiful life that suspend effortlessly in time. But what exists in this film is comparatively lukewarm, presumably helped by Eastwood’s “hands-off” directing technique. His signature one-take approach might work with seasoned actors like Bradley Cooper and Hilary Swank, but guidance might have saved these non-actors from producing the steely imitations that result.

And, the lackluster performances are not exclusive to the leads: the comedic actors that fill their origin story, such as Tony Hale (“Veep”), Jenna Malone (“The Office”), and Jaleel White (forever known as Steve Urkel), procure laughter in scenes that are not meant to be funny.

“My God is bigger than your statistics, so I don’t really care what you have to say anymore!” Joyce Stone (Judy Greer) remarks in the first few minutes, before slamming the door on her son’s teacher. The outburst leaves the audience feeling unsure of whether they should laugh or sympathize (but leaning more towards the former).

This mix of professionals with non-actors, with no real differentiation or reasoning between the two (Anthony Sadler’s parents appear as themselves but the other boys’ mothers are actors), makes for a strained and awkward impression of humanity that is neither lifelike nor stylized.

“I don’t know, man, do you ever just feel like life is just catapulting you towards something, some greater purpose?”

This is Stone’s attempt to wax poetic to Sadler, looking out over the scenery, bathed in magic hour, on an afternoon in Italy. The screenplay, written by Dorothy Blyskal, is one of the biggest aspects to blame for this disaster. The dialogue, void of any subtext, sputters along clumsily, only made worse when uttered by any one of the actors. Seemingly, she wanted to leave the least amount of room for interpretation in each line, attempting to make it easier for the leads to perform. But all that results is agonizingly direct candor that will have you wondering whether this film is truly only 96 minutes long.

There are fans that will argue this was Eastwood’s step in the direction of more abstract artistic expression, the intentionally-messy avant-garde. Those are likely the same people who claim that the baby in “American Sniper” didn’t look that fake. But if this is an indicator of what the 87-year-old actor-turned-director is currently capable of, perhaps it’s better if he just retires.

If you so desire, “The 15:17 to Paris” is now playing nationwide. But, trust me, the above trailer will suffice.

Hungary’s “On Body and Soul” explores and presents us with possible answers to both curiosities, while also foraging welcome contemplation on others.

Well-deserved acclaim is undeniably in Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi’s DNA: her first feature, “My Twentieth Century”, won the 1989 Camera d’Or Award at Cannes and “On Body and Soul” won the esteemed Golden Bear at last year’s Berlin Film Festival and recently was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The well-crafted and subtle feature is the Hungarian director first in almost 20 years, after spending the past few in television and short-form. This film Through the composed stillness that spreads its affection onto both its leading characters, Enyedi allows our minds to explore themes of loneliness and how that might be combated by togetherness.

Shot on location in Budapest, our supposed hero, Endre (Géza Morcsányi) leads an uneventful life. Between acting as the manager at a local cattle slaughterhouse, he lives in a one-room apartment, only large enough for a solitary bachelor. Moving through the motions of meetings and supervisory actions, there seems to be a palpable void in his life–which can’t be filled by physical intimacy alone. Shortly after a strange new hire, Mária (Alexandra Borbély), arrives, the management office’s stock of tranquilizers and pheromones disappears. Following an investigation into the theft, the police suggest Endre hire a psychologist to interrogate the staff. However, in this process, he discovers not only the culprit but that he and Mária have been sharing the same, recurring dream.

In the first few minutes, the images of deer in a patch of forest seem to be waywardly intercut glamour shots. But we come to learn, by chance, that we are viewing their shared dream. Endre and Mária appear as deer, wandering a forest together, sipping water conscientiously from a stream. With a simple touch of nose to nose, we’re given insight that, although buried beneath insecurities and anxieties, both of these lonely people want the same thing: companionship.

After their shared dream occurs a couple times, the two wandering souls agree to make their nature-led fantasy a reality. Through spending time together, combined with a series of experiments, their relationship reaches unexpected results. If played by any other cast, by actors too basic or perfect, the story itself might read entirely different. But Borbély plays the role of Maria with a wide-eyed and delicate emptiness, detached and isolated from her surroundings. To the tune of eerie-acoustic songstress Laura Marling’s sorrowful voice, we get a clear view into Mária’s solitary existence that can’t only be captured in her frightened stare and stiff movements. Dissimilar, yet fitting together like puzzle pieces, Géza, a non-actor, plays Endre with a gruff but naturalistic demeanor. He consistently alienates almost anyone who talks to him with lies and defensive comments–but this draws us into his perspective, pinpointing the subtle movements in his face that let us look past the words and indicate how he truly feels.

Mária and Endre spend most of their waking hours at the slaughterhouse, so it makes sense for this hulking locale to take on a character of its own. Scenes within this establishment fill the frames with discarded blood swirling down drains and refrigerated stillness punctured only by coffee breaks. Before either character appears on screen, we’re submerged in their world, we understand the miserable existence they are resigned to inhabit. Ever-present is the looming sense of death’s fragility–and both our characters ache with the bone-deep craving for human affection.

Throughout the 116 minutes, the viewer weaves through both reality and the world of dreams seamlessly; by its end, it has you contemplating whether the entire film might have just been one long, warm daydream. When in the real world, our leads are consistently seen through faraway windows or the fingerprinted glass of a lunchroom buffet, giving us the voyeuristic impression that we’re spying on them, but not intrusively so. With soft lighting and intimate close-ups, cinematographer Máté Herbai captures the subjects simply and effectively, mirroring the gentle embrace of the narrative itself.

With its whispering intimacy, the film leaves you breathless through every act and doesn’t last a minute longer than it needs to. For those that enjoy the magical realism of other European films such as “The Double” and “The Lobster”, “On Body and Soul” is an excellent and hopeful outlook on what unique stories we can begin to expect.

“On Body and Soul” is now streaming on Netflix.

From the moment that Spielberg set eyes on the script, he became determined to make and release the film before the first year of the Trump’s presidency concluded. The theme of it, after all, is freedom of the press. At least, that’s what he thinks it is.

The film takes place in a Nixon-era D.C. and follows the journalists and editors at the Washington Post as they try to decide whether or not to publish the Pentagon Papers. The classified documents detailed the United States’ failing involvement in the Vietnam War, whose leak would reveal that several presidents had been lying for years. Led by publisher Katharine “Kay” Graham (Meryl Streep) alongside Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), the executive editor, they grapple with the decision that could affect the outcome of not only the struggling publication but their eminent social connections as well.

“The Post” primarily consists of numerous, extended tracking shots of Streep and Hanks which refuse to end when the content of their conversations become stale. The reasoning for this seems to be solely because they are Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks. Never once do you forget that these are the seasoned actors you’ve come to know from other iconic roles. If the best kinds of performances make you forget you’re watching the same actor from another film, such as Timothee Chamalet’s wholly transformative performances in 2017’s “Lady Bird” and “Call Me By Your Name”, Spielberg’s insistence on these drawn-out takes never once lets it slip your mind. Besides Streep and Hanks, the film boasts a cast that contains a familiar face wherever you look. From the smallest roles that only require a single utterance to the more prominently featured, Spielberg has crammed notable talent into his movie to the maximum capacity–including his own daughter, Sasha Spielberg, among the lineup.

Arguably, the film’s primary flaw is that, throughout the mild verbal sparring and hurt of not being invited from John F. Kennedy’s funeral, the stakes are fairly low throughout. The main source of tension comes not only from whether or not the paper is going to go public, but if Graham and Bradlee’s social relationships will remain intact after the story is published. Both stakes, if one could even call them that, are hardly worth caring about.

Rare are the moments that make our heart race, that make us hold our breath; there is nothing stressful about a group of men rolling up their literal shirtsleeves and pecking avidly on typewriters in a well-appointed mansion.

And, throughout these sequences, Sarah Paulson cooks and bakes in the background, like the dutiful housewife she is–a true waste of her Emmy Award-winning talents.

And if that wasn’t all that constrains the film from being as effective as it wants to be–there is one, undeniable fact the undercuts all resemblance of drama: the New York Times broke the story first. When compared to other visual media that center around exciting albeit stressful journalistic efforts, such as 2015 Best Picture “Spotlight” and Aaron Sorkin’s HBO drama “The Newsroom”, the stakes surrounding the happenings of the Washington Post reporters and editors pale undeniably in comparison. Interestingly enough, the screenplay, penned by Liz Hannah, was featured on the 2017 Black List, a compilation of Hollywood’s best unproduced screenplays. Although the original version was centered more on Graham, “Spotlight” screenwriter, Josh Singer was brought on to add men to the mix.

It seems as though the film as a whole is trying to achieve some sort of statement of Katharine Graham’s plight in the male-dominated workforce of journalism in the 1970s, but what exactly that message is has been muddled by furtive sideways glances and the hunched physicality of Streep’s performance. Kay is clearly presented as an outsider with brightly-colored printed blouses that stand out among the sea of solid dark grey, black, and navy men’s suits. Her ideas are stolen off yellow legal pads by her male colleagues and the value of her high position is not attributed to her qualifications but to formulaic succession. However, later in the film, when she is faced with the decision to either paint her high-class friends poorly or to report The Post’s findings to the public–like any journalist has the basic obligation to do–she hesitates, negating her internal sense of fight that has been established. But, when she then emerges from the Supreme Court and walks down the stairs, flanked on either side by admiring women, its finally proclaimed that she has done “the right thing”.

Each scene is tinged with desperation: every ounce of it strives to achieve what they believe will lead them to Oscar gold. Combined with the vintage, grainy quality of the visuals, the audience is incapable of forgetting that these events happened in the past. Which begs the question, if it was not based on historical events, would anyone care at all?

“The Post” is now playing nationwide.

Above all, “Hostiles” is a film about redemption: not only of what it costs, but what lengths we’ll go to achieve it. Whether or not that redemption is fully realized or earned however, is something screenwriter, director, and producer Scott Cooper (“Black Mass”, “Crazy Heart”) has left almost entirely unsaid. Another 2017 release, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”, explained away Jason Dixon’s (Sam Rockwell) inherent racism with a sympathy-inducing backstory. And, in “Hostiles”, Cooper believes his hero’s problematic references to the Native Americans as “bastards and bitches” can be quelled by a handful of emotional beats.

In 1892 New Mexico, Captain Joseph J. Blocker (Christian Bale) is your average, gun- and knife-wielding, whiskey-sipping, shamelessly scalping military man on the verge of retirement. However, after his superior forces him to accompany a Native American family back to their home in Montana, the prejudiced and stoic soldier begrudgingly obliges.

It’s the proverbial famous last words: he agrees to just one last job.

Making his way through the expansive Southwestern countryside, his motley crew in tow, they come across Rosalee Quaid (Rosamund Pike), a traumatized housewife, crouched in the shadows of her log cabin’s charred remains. Still clutching the bloody blanket surrounding her dead infant, Rosalee is understandably disturbed from witnessing her husband and three children’s brutal murder by Comanche warriors. Not wanting to leave her stranded, Captain Blocker decides–out of the goodness of his own, Caucasian-inclined heart–to bring Rosalee along for their journey.

The film, which debuted at the 2017 Telluride Film Festival, spends most of its hefty runtime (2 hours, 15 minutes) attempting to deny its predecessors’ inclination to stereotype. From the wise Native American chief, to the kind-hearted soft-spoken Southern boy, to the blonde-haired-blue-eyed damsel in distress, it only accomplishes to depict cardboard cutout tropes. Contained within these lengthy yet gorgeous shots of the expansive land on which they travel, there’s hardly anything far-reaching from the Western genre. What Cooper seems to be saying–or possibly, screaming–is that not everything was so black-and-white in these times, as has been depicted in classic Westerns such as “The Searchers” (1956). Nothing is glossed over; what was once glamorized or altogether omitted is now unflinchingly realized on screen.

Evoking a similarity to both the visual style and patient narrative unfurling of Ang Lee’s 2005 Academy-acclaimed film, “Brokeback Mountain”, cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi captures the countryside of then-undeveloped middle-America states like Colorado and Wyoming impressively. This, along with the sparing use of Max Richter’s musical score to enhance the spacious isolation of the open road, are the film’s strengths. Where it lacks however, is in the quality of its performances. Rosemund Pike’s presence exists simply to fulfill some sort of hero fantasy that Captain Blocker could not achieve otherwise with his solitary and grouchy existence. Although her technique and interpretation of the character might be somewhat nuanced, the character itself did not give her much to work with in the first place. In a time where empowered female characters are celebrated, Rosalee Quaid withers with thinly-laid emptiness.

Another failure, is the one very important historical element that the movie fails to seriously address: the concurrent government-led genocide of the Native American tribes. Perhaps, it is ignored because Captain Blocker himself does not regard anything outside his spectrum of comfort with much moral weight. But the film never strikes a difference between the violent self-motivated attacks upon presumably innocent families (such as the Quaids), from the mass genocide that resulted from the early government’s dominance.

On the surface, “Hostiles” comes off as a meditation on hatred and supposedly timeless American values with its long drawn out scenes stacked high with garbled sentences. Ultimately, “Hostiles” fails at its attempt to be both an homage and a juxtaposition to the well-worn genre of time passed. Cooper wants to say something new while also sticking to the Americana tradition of his previous features. To use another equally as trite saying, he wants to have his cake and eat it too–but manages to achieve neither.

After a small release late last year, “Hostiles” was released nationwide last Friday, January 26th, 2018.

It’s true: dining-and-dashing from local establishments, shoplifting, accidental murder, and suicide, backed by angst-ridden dialogue, don’t seem to be the makings of something revolutionary. But from the time Alyssa (Jessica Barden) and James (Alex Lawther) exchange stiff pleasantries across their high school lunchroom, we know this relationship will be different.

James is a self-diagnosed sociopath who dips his hand in fryers filled with bubbling oil, just so he can feel something. Alyssa instinctively pushes away everyone who comes close to her with nasty remarks. They’re both equally misunderstood by their clueless, yet layered parents. And, somehow, director Jonathan Entwistle’s depiction and distinct style in “The End of the F***ing World” reads fresh, evoking a cinematic experience that will leave you wishing the entire series ran longer than three hours.

Both dismissing their average, “boring” home lives, they steal a car and run away from home. At first, their escape consists of laser tag and French fries but makes an about-face when several dark events occur. The stolen sedan goes up in flames, a major artery is punctured, and their carefree getaway turns into one that centers around evading the law. For the remaining episodes, expertly shot by Justin Brown (Episodes 1-4) and Ben Fordesman (Episodes 5-8), the two runaways dash around the overcast countryside, clad in thrift-store rags — a teenage, British Bonnie and Clyde.

Following a year filled with very few films or television programs that shook our expectations to their core, Netflix released all eight episodes of the genre-traversing, convention-shattering series on Friday, January 8th, 2018. Its appearance on the site came as a surprise to most, since promotion for the series was scarce. Ranking up an astounding 100% on Rotten Tomatoes in the days following, “The End of the F***ing World” is an undeniable hit for Netflix’s collaboration with British network Channel 4. Following the success of sleeper hit “Stranger Things”, the online digital giant has realized its demographic’s penchant for foul-mouthed teenagers defying odds beyond their years.

Based on Charles Forsman’s 2011 graphic novel of the same name, this series is not the first time Entwistle has adapted this particular text. In 2014, he produced a short film version called “TEOTFW” that would act as a proof-of-concept and become the basis for Netflix’s pilot episode. Barden is the only actor to return to the project and it’s clear why–she fits into this role seamlessly–there truly could be no one else. (Interestingly, Craig Roberts played the role of James in the short film and the series bears a strong artistic resemblance to another film of his, “Submarine”. However, at 27, the actor is clearly no longer right for the role, no matter how fitting he may have been.)

“[It’s] kinda [sic] like Moonrise Kingdom meets Natural Born Killers,” Netflix wrote in a comment on their official US Instagram account.

And yes, the series does bear a strong stylistic resemblance to Wes Anderson’s films — but with the dark, death-obsessed tinge of Tim Burton. The characters’ intonations invoke comparisons to the blasé line-reads of “The Royal Tenenbaums” and said dialogue is backed by 1960s pop-rock, also one of Anderson’s go-to moves. However, there’s a distinct darkness draped over this world. When juxtaposed with a wailing, seminal ballad such as Bernadette Covell’s “Laughing on the Outside”, the images of dead animals organized neatly upon a tabletop don’t seem so bleak, but a bit charming. When James is perfectly centered in frame, in a mid-century modern mansion, unsheathing a hunting knife, it not only makes our hearts race, but swell three sizes.

Deftly switching aspect ratios, we get to know James and Alyssa intimately: their faults, their secrets, their histories, and the people that inhabit them. Through absurdist characters, Charlie Covell’s script calls attention to society’s flaws in thinking. Although voiceover is viewed as a narrative crutch, Covell has found a way to breathe new life into the technique. The actress-turned-screenwriter follows particularly façade-driven lines with intimate voiceover that directly contradicts in their vulnerability. These sort of interactions let the audience know that what James and Alyssa reveal to each other is not necessarily the whole truth. But, as the viewer, we can get to know and love these characters in full, which make their flaws — murderous tendencies and wayward insults — land with sympathetic grace.

All episodes are now streaming on Netflix.