In Disney’s 2020 attempt to resuscitate the 1998 animated film, much of the nostalgic charm of the original “Mulan” is deadened for the sake of aesthetic value and purported maturation — not to mention political controversy beyond the screen. Rather than pay homage to the playful, accessible ...
“Boys State,” directed by filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, swept 2020 festival circuits and won the U.S. Documentary Competition Grand Jury plerize at the Sundance Film Festival. The documentary was critically acclaimed for its analogizing of grand-scale American politics in American Legion’s ...
Morale is low in the entertainment industry. With Disney’s live-action adaptation of the 1988 animated classic Mulan all-but-abandoned on streaming services and the forthcoming Bond film delayed for months, the COVID-19 pandemic has sunk the film industry to new lows. But, in an attempt to curb continued ...
Among the many apocalyptic films introduced in the wake of COVID-19, writer-director Cho Il attempted to deliver an alternate perspective on the usual action-packed zombie survival category with his debut film, “#Alive.” But while at first the film seems promising, it eventually fails to escape ...
Perhaps the isolationist existence provokes some sort of artistic intuition. Many famed artists have produced their most iconic works during periods of self-isolation: Virginia Woolf during depressive dazes, Edvard Munch after contracting the Spanish Flu, John Adams during a self-induced Californian ...
“I don’t even know who I am in this whole thing anymore, where I stop and Jake starts,” Lucy thinks to herself as she paces up and down the stairs. Her musings that occur halfway through the film are only one of the many metaphysical, enigmatic and puzzling clues screenwriter and director Charlie ...
Writer-director Carlo Mirabella-Davis’ directorial debut, the psychological-thriller “Swallow,” reveals the horrors of a woman’s alienation from her marriage, struggles with mental illness and battles with an eating disorder. Against the muted backdrop of the Hudson River Valley, Hunter Conrad ...
When Esther Shapiro, known as Esty, jumps in the taxi for the first time, she can’t help but gaze out at the sky through the window as tears begin streaming down her face. She has escaped her past and is ready to start anew. Written by Anna Winger and Alexa Karolinksi, "Unorthodox" tells the story ...
In an era of large-scale Hollywood reboots that too often collapse into a cesspool of critical disdain and overwhelming disappointment, writer and director Leigh Whannell offers a sophisticated adaptation of H. G. Wells’s classic novel “The Invisible Man.” Subverting the novel’s omniscient narrator, ...
Director Céline Sciamma explores and celebrates the tender but tragic love between two women in her fourth feature film, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” which opened at Avon Cinema last Friday, Feb. 28. Marianne, a Parisian painter, and Héloïse, a former convent girl from an aristocratic family, ...
“At the center of this glass bottle is rose quartz — the crystal of compassion, tenderness, and comfort,” describes an $80 water bottle on Santa Monica-based lifestyle brand goop’s web store. The Netflix series, “the goop lab,” released on Jan. 24, serves as a sort of realization of this ...
On Feb. 21, the South-Korean boy band BTS (Beyond the Scene) released their seventh studio album “Map of the Soul: 7.” The album is made up of 20 tracks, five of which come from their previous album “Map of the Soul: Persona.” Each track, regardless of whether it was pre-released or not, secured ...
On Feb. 12 — just two days before Valentine’s Day — Netflix released “To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You,” the sequel to the sensational 2018 rom-com “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before.” The film adaptation roughly parallels the second book of author Jenny Han’s trilogy “To All ...
Okay Kaya’s second studio-length album is a cathartic recollection and release of intimate memory. “Watch This Liquid Pour Itself,” released Jan. 24, pushes Kaya’s genre-bending sound further than past experiments; here, she oscillates between moments of wistful, folkish R&B and bullish ...
On Jan. 31, the release of Taylor Swift’s intimate documentary “Miss Americana” took Netflix by storm. Directed by Emmy-Award winner Lana Wilson, the documentary follows Swift on her long-winded search for “happiness without anyone else’s input,” highlighting her struggles against criticisms, ...
Last week, the Avon Cinema screened the 92nd Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film nominees in anticipation of the awards show. Out of the 92 short films that qualified for Oscar consideration, “Hair Love,” “Kitbull,” “Daughter,” “Sister” and “Memorable” were selected to compete ...
“Uncut Gems,” an American crime thriller directed by Josh and Benny Safdie, is an action-packed cinematic masterpiece. Adam Sandler plays the movie’s main character, Howard Ratner, a gambler and businessman who runs a jewelry store in New York’s diamond district. A 10-year long project, “Uncut ...
“Five, six, seven, eight, one!” That’s the cue for Navarro cheerleader Morgan Simianer to hurl herself thirty feet into the air, flip twice at the top, then land back in the arms of four of her teammates. She groans upon impact but hops out of the stunt nonchalantly, clearly used to the pain. “There’s ...
In 070 Shake’s debut album, “Modus Vivendi,” the rising artist employs sanguine, dreamy studio production while lyrically reflecting on relationships. But, the 22-year-old still seems to be polishing how studio experimentation can serve her genre-less introspection. Released Jan. 17, the GOOD ...
In his characteristic imitation of the mumblecore aesthetic, director Noah Baumbach tackles the transformation of love in his most recent project, “Marriage Story,” released on Netflix in December. The project is reflective and semi-autobiographical for Baumbach, recalling similar domestic meditations ...
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