Review: What We Become (2015) ★★½
Apparently, filmmakers are not concerned with showing the best and brightest humanity has to offer during a zombie apocalypse; instead,
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Film Reviews
Read Matthew Jones’s reviews of new releases, independent films, cult cinema, and overlooked works from across film history. Each review looks beyond whether a film succeeds or fails to examine what it reveals about identity, morality, politics, society, and the human experience.
Review: Baskin (2015) ★★★
There is a fine line between what academics and horror aficionados would deem “high-art” horror (though many will claim that
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Review: The Ritual (2017) ★★★½
The horror genre is one of the few arenas where doing things “by the books” is not necessarily a bad
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Review: The Official Story (La Historia Oficial, 1985) ★★★★
One issue I take with most fictionalized accounts of historical events is that they fail to understand how closely they
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Review: The Girl with All the Gifts (2016)
One of the primary issues plaguing modern horror is stories that often don’t have the legs to reach a satisfying
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Review: Marie Antoinette (2006) ★★★★
Marie Antoinette was a historical figure who has become synonymous with excess. More often than not, this has been used
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Review: The Headless Woman (2008) ★★★★
When people are faced with chaos, or, to be a bit less melodramatic, an absence of facts that would otherwise
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Review: Madame (2017) ★
Amanda Sthers’ romantic comedy, Madame, exemplifies just how pervasive American cinematic banality has become. Despite being written and directed by
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Review: Kept and Dreamless (Las Mantenidas Sin Sueños, 2005) ★★★
Kept and Dreamless is, above all else, a mood picture. It makes spectators adopt the same sentiments as the characters,
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Review: Julieta (2016) ★★★½
I have postponed writing about several of Pedro Almodóvar’s films, including Julieta, but not because I didn’t find them worthy
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Review: By the Sea (2015) ★★★½
Angelina Jolie’s contemplative drama By the Sea is, if nothing else, surprisingly self-aware. Though for all of the things it
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Review: Prom Night (1980) ★½
Paul Lynch’s Prom Night is not a only disappointment because it is derivative of other superior films (namely Halloween and
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Review: The Nun (La Religieuse, 2013) ★★★★
Guillaume Nicloux’s dramatic film, The Nun (French Title: La Religieuse), based on the 1796 novel by Denis Diderot, is a
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Review: Nathalie… (2003) ★★★½
As an American, I always admire the cavalier attitude that the French seem to have toward sex. A friend of
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Review: The City of Lost Children (1995) ★★½
There is no denying that Terry Gilliam is a brilliant filmmaker, and he is deserving of the veneration and even
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Review: My Cousin Rachel (2017) ★★
Having seen a number of period films set in Victorian England, I have admittedly allowed them to blend together, forming
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Review: El Crimen del Padre Amaro (2002) ★★½
The Catholic Church has a long history of entangling itself in sex scandals, despite constant attempts from within the organization
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