To understand One Battle After Another, I want you to think about a garden. If you put time and effort into a garden, it will look nice. If you ignore the garden, then slowly and inevitably other ...

Eddington has so much going on that it’s easy to feel lost. Thankfully, our First Rule of Film Analysis holds true: if you compare the beginning to the end, narrative and thematic intention becomes ...

If you want a quick explanation of A Complete Unknown, here it is. A Complete Unknown has two levels. The first is Bob Dylan’s journey into and out of the folk scene. Initially, it’s something he ...

If you want to understand Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that much of the story boils down to a simple theme: connection. And that explains essentially 95% ...

Bishop Robert Barron had quite the response to Conclave. He said: If you are interested in a film about the Catholic Church that could have been written by the editorial board of the New York Times, ...

The end of Heretic is designed to make viewers wonder what information is relevant or irrelevant. For example, there’s a whole stretch of the film where Mr. Reed wants Barnes and Paxton to believe ...

Man, Naomi Scott gave everything she had to Smile 2 to convey Skye Riley’s grief, trauma, and struggle. One of the most memorable horror performances in recent memory. And Skye feels very much of the ...

The end of Possession can leave you at a complete loss, asking yourself, “What did I just watch?” But don’t give up hope! Possession provides inroads that give us the context necessary to piece ...

As big and seemingly confounding as Synecdoche, New York seems, it’s actually quite simple. The broader message is that we don’t have much time and we’re prone to waste time. Caden’s life has three ...

The Substance is an immediate cult classic. It’s arguably the best body horror movie of the 21st century. But also has meaningful, necessary things to say about our relationship with aging and modern ...

Blink Twice joins a long line of r*pe-revenge films that started with Bergman’s The Virgin Spring and has continued through the decades with films like The Last House on the Left, I Spit on Your Grave ...

What is Alien: Romulus about? Alien: Romulus is about the difficulty in leaving the life you’ve known for something new. Whether that’s leaving a third world country or a small town or a job or ...