Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Tim Burton's long-awaited sequel is a wasted opportunity

"...the realm of the undead. They were the audience proxy, and the fact that the hugely successful Broadway musical..."

Sept. 6, 2024 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

The Promised Land

Wildly ahistorical Danish epic adds an intriguing level of court intrigue and class aspiration to a familiar plot.

"...and a foulmouthed runaway waif (Hagberg) to his ramshackle proxy family. What raises it above its similarly plotted kindred..."

Feb. 2, 2024 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

Origin

Ava DuVernay's plainly spoken look at the underpinnings of bigotry

"...Niecy Nash-Betts. Marion is Isabel’s sounding board, and a proxy for the audience, too, when she urges Isabel to..."

Jan. 19, 2024 Movie Review by Kimberley Jones

I.S.S.

Spacebound political thriller lacks any sense of gravity

"...and have more solutions, than any of the established proxy family members. Similarly, director Gabriela Cowperthwaite (who invoked raw..."

Jan. 19, 2024 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

The Boys in the Boat

Classic sporting underdog story of the 1936 Olympic rowing team

"...when the team arrives in Berlin and become a proxy for the fight against the Nazis. However, these ideas..."

Dec. 22, 2023 Movie Review by Alejandra Martinez

My Animal

Poignant addition to the teen wolf movie pack

"...Vampire mainstreamed the idea of the monster as a proxy for queer liberation. It's how Ginger Snaps and The..."

Sept. 8, 2023 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

Babylon

Star-studded, bittersweet love letter to the golden age of Hollywood is cinema maximus

"...Jean Smart as tabloid queen Elinor St. John (Chazelle's proxy for OG starfucker Hedda Hopper). They eloquently balance the..."

Dec. 23, 2022 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

The Eternal Daughter

Ghosts of family bonds haunt Tilda Swinton in this continuation of The Souvenir

"...while Swinton’s daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne, became Julie, the proxy for Hogg herself...."

Dec. 2, 2022 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

Minamata

Johnny Depp keeps it low-key in this bleak envirodrama

"...out by Bill Nighy as editor Robert Hayes (a proxy for Life Editor Thomas Griffith), who is watching the..."

Feb. 11, 2022 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

Clean

Adrien Brody gets dirty in this suitably scummy revenge drama

"...and nightmare sequences that explain why he’s become a proxy father at arm’s length of his young neighbor, Diandra..."

Jan. 28, 2022 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

The Souvenir Part II

Second part of Joanna Hogg's chronicle of loss

"...she becomes more of a fictional character than a proxy. Yet it's not about anything so trite as "moving..."

Nov. 12, 2021 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

Don’t Breathe 2

Misguided sequel tries to redeem the irredeemable

"...since we’re supposed to root for her survival, by proxy we must root for the Blind Man to succeed..."

Aug. 20, 2021 Movie Review by Jenny Nulf

The Suicide Squad

James Gunn's bad guys doing good prove DC needs to get silly

"...terrifying (while still ridiculous), but even he can't drag proxy Latin American dictatorship Corto Maltese, with its succession of..."

Aug. 6, 2021 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

Black Widow

What happened in Budapest no longer stays in Budapest as Marvel learns spycraft

"...his absence, and so it’s the reassembling of the proxy family that dominates much of the story. There’s a..."

July 9, 2021 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

Siberia

Dafoe and Ferrara head to the frozen north

"...if he's finally stopped using the actor as a proxy and instead laid himself open to the kind of..."

June 25, 2021 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

Minari

Sublime and soulful drama about immigration, family and farming in 1980s Arkansas

"...this nowhere town, or young son David (Kim, Chung's proxy), whose heart murmur means he should keep them closer..."

Feb. 12, 2021 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

Go/Don't Go

Enigmatic end-of-the-world story blossoms into quiet hope

"...there (that light bulb cemetery is a place of proxy grief, because whatever happened to humanity left no bodies..."

Jan. 22, 2021 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

The Stand In

Drew Barrymore pretends to be Drew Barrymore in this Hollywood comedy

"...Not reviewed at press time. A Hollywood proxy gets their unexpected day in the spotlight when America’s..."

Dec. 11, 2020 Movie Review

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

Sacha Baron Cohen's satirical creation remains hit-or-miss, but those hits ...

"...Cohen had to retire his original proxy, Ali G, because he'd become too (in)famous for the..."

Oct. 23, 2020 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

Warning: Do Not Play

South Korean horror is really about the terror of filmmaking failure

"...His protagonist/proxy, Mi-Jung (Seo), is in a similar boat. She's a..."

June 12, 2020 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

Tommaso

Abel Ferrara’s (self-)portrait of the artist in (self-)martyrdom

"...most respected actors working today – to play a proxy of himself and create a fictionalized version of his..."

June 5, 2020 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

Becky

Because sometimes you just have to deal with a few neo-Nazis the old-fashioned way

"...Maillet (like Bautista, a former WWE wrestler-turned-actor) as Dominick's proxy son, Apex, who has started to realize that murdering..."

June 5, 2020 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

The Burnt Orange Heresy

Disjointed art heist thriller is a better character study than crime drama

"...re-establish his own shattered credentials - seems the perfect proxy to enable its procurement, by fair means or foul...."

May 8, 2020 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

Big Time Adolescence

SNL’s Pete Davidson plays unlikely mentor

"...There’s more than a twist of every proxy elder brother drama, most especially Matthew Lillard’s charming and..."

March 20, 2020 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

Little Women

Relish the contemporary touches in this new version of Alcott’s classic

"...these extraordinary, ordinary girls – and he’s a fine proxy for those of us who’ve been living with the..."

Dec. 20, 2019 Movie Review by Kimberley Jones

Crawl

Chompy creature feature is the savior of summer horror

"...tries to get too complex, like his Munchausen by proxy debacle The 9th Life of Louis Drax, it's a..."

July 19, 2019 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

Austin at Large: Cracking the Code

Change in our city will move at the speed of trust

"...is really about land use. Rather, we're fighting a proxy war – or I should say, another one –..."

Dec. 7, 2018 News Column by Mike Clark-Madison

Custody

A disturbingly honest portrayal of abuse and divorce

"...likable. His control and abuse of Julien as a proxy for Miriam is emotionally accurate, a disturbing depiction of..."

Aug. 3, 2018 Movie Review by Richard Whittaker

Una

A woman confronts an older ex-lover with devastating results

"...history stay buried, he – and the audience by proxy – can only wonder where this is all going,..."

Nov. 3, 2017 Movie Review by Marc Savlov

DVDanger: Fragile Minds

Dementia and Remember find terror in age

"...eater,” he gruffly informs visiting nurse Michelle (Kristina Klebe, Proxy)..."

May 28, 2016 Screens Post by Richard Whittaker

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