Film Archives

If people of color are the only ones raising their voices and celebrating increased representation, then our collective forward progress will be minimal, indeed.

In the #MeToo era, an ending like that in My Fair Lady could give us all hope that people can change—something we desperately need to remember.

Wade and Kevin have gentrification on the mind this week, as they review two films about unwelcome new arrivals in the neighborhood: Carlos Lopez Estrada’s Blindspotting, a drama about race and indie sci-fi/thriller The Endless, the new neighbor is an otherworldly force revered by a backwoods cult.

The Mission: Impossible films appeal to us because they offer a kind of terrifying drama that ends in assurance and consolation.

Wade and Kevin review the latest Mission: Impossible film (alternate title: See Tom Run) and the latest indie darling from studio A24, Eighth Grade. Thrills and chills abound!

As Leave No Trace teaches us, we’ve all been given lenses tinted by unhealthy fears because we live in a broken world that inflicts varying degrees of trauma on everyone.

Both movies this week involve a measure of mayhem, but the two directors’ personal approaches to their stories couldn’t be more different: The Equalizer 2 and The Third Murder.

Mingled terror and hope will be with us so long as we live, as we can see in the indie black comedy I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore.

Wade and Kevin get lost in the woods for their first film this week: Leave No Trace, Debra Granik’s long-awaited follow-up to Winter’s Bone. Then things take a turn for the weird as the guys jump into Boots Riley satire of capitalism and racism run amok, Sorry to Bother You.

In Ant-Man and the Wasp, Marvel reveals the importance of intact families—wherever we might find them.

While Phantom Thread works as a metaphor for the difficulty of relationships (and the conclusion is not to be taken literally), it also provides a picture of spiritual pursuit.

The guys review a very big movie about a very tiny pair of heroes this week with the Marvel offering for July, Ant-Man and the Wasp. Also on the docket is another unusual story: a documentary about a set of triplets, separated at birth, who come to find one another later in life. Hijinks may or may not ensue.

The release of Sicario: Day of the Soldado, the sequel to Denis Villeneuve’s acclaimed 2015 thriller about the U.S.-Mexico drug war, has the guys thinking about the gateway drugs that got them into movies in the first place.

Wade and Kevin decide to investigate whether Jurassic Word: Fallen Kingdom is a worthy successor to its ancestors. Then they decide to spend some time with some smooth criminals in the star-studded Ocean’s 8, in which Sandra Bullock leads a squad of thieves in – what else? – a daring heist.

At its core, First Reformed is about the perennial challenge of maintaining faith and hope in the midst of doubt and despair.

The real success of the Jurassic Park franchise lies not in a desire to see dinosaurs run amuck again and again, but in our desire to be shaken out of our lethargy and see something indescribably greater than ourselves.