Dasvidanya, The Americans

by Lynn Lee

[Warning: Spoilers for the series finale of The Americans] 

It ended not with a bang or with a whimper, but with the characteristic slow burn and emotional gravitas that’s been its hallmark all along.  The series finale of The Americans may not have been what everyone expected or wanted, but it was a fitting conclusion to one of the best shows of the decade.

There’s been plenty of speculation over the years about the end game for FX’s critically acclaimed but ratings-challenged drama about Reagan-era Soviet spies posing as the perfectly all-American family next door.  History foreordained that the Jenningses’ cause was doomed, and as their personal kill count and internal conflict mounted, a reckoning seemed inevitable...

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Brief Takes: Unsane and Pacific Rim Uprising

by Nathaniel R

Unsane (Steven Soderbergh)
Synopsis: A disturbed young woman, who is institutionalized against her will, is convinced that a former stalker is one of her nurses.

Capsule: The queer community got there first. Although to be fair when isn't that the case? Soderbergh's iPhone shot movie is no aesthetic relevation like the trans iPhone classic Tangerine. Still, more filmmakers ought to try to make something as fast and cheap and spirited as this thriller inbetween pricier or weightier projects...

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Review: Red Sparrow

by Eric Blume

The Russian Tourism Board won’t likely be sponsoring the film Red Sparrow, the new spy movie from Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence.  Other than featuring some very chic ushankas on a very attractive cast, this film makes Russians look very nasty, just like we’ve always imagined them to be for the movies.  Lawrence’s conception of the country illustrates his wonderfully corny, often thrilling, mysterious, and silly/serious approach into old-fashioned espionage that we don’t see much of nowadays.

Lawrence starts his film where he should:  firmly on the face of his leading lady, Jennifer Lawrence, sporting a bangs-heavy brown wig.  She’s a famous ballet dancer in Moscow, and the director steals a bit of the feverish tone of Black Swan in her early scenes.  The plot unravels in a series of crosses, double-crosses, and reverses that include her involvement with a US spy played by Joel Edgerton...

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Months of Meryl: Still of the Night (1982)

Hi, we’re John and Matt and, icymi, we are watching every single live-action film starring Streep...

#7 — Brooke Reynolds, a Waspy urbanite and unlikely femme fatale with a shady past and a killer blonde bob.

MATTHEW: No actor, not even the oft-cited Greatest Actress of All Time, is immune to the inevitable and indisputable stinker. Seven projects in and just touching the surface of true-blue movie stardom, Meryl Streep finally made her first real turkey...

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Blueprints: "Get Out"

We’re right in the middle of the awards race heat. Jorge takes a look at one of the most celebrated screenplays of last year, and how the meaning of its words change upon a second reading.

[Caution! Spoilers ahead for Get Out!]

 

Get Out has rightfully been one of the most acclaimed movies of the year. It’s genre-bending reflection on white liberalism is a seamless blend of comedy, horror, and satire. As it goes with all great movies, it all goes back to the script. Jordan Peele’s screenplay plays with the audience’s expectations masterfully, packing it with thrills and reveals and twists.

There is a twist about two thirds into Get Out, where a character who we thought was on Chris’s side (and therefore, the audience’s) turns out to have been in on it the entire time, the reveal done with only the jingle of keys... 

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