Movie review by Greg Carlson Gregg Araki, New Queer Cinema legend and provocateur, now 66, brings some laughter and some pain to the kids who weren’t yet born when the Teenage Apocalypse trilogy shook up indie/outsider/DIY moviemaking back in the 1990s (where does the time go?). “I Want Your Sex,” which ends a dozen-year drought […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson The movies love to dramatize, to one degree or another, the struggles of mental illness. Major studios are frequently seduced by the prestige potential of both fiction and nonfiction bestsellers on the topic that dangle the possibilities of award season accolades and even Oscar gold. More often than not, those […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Working from a script by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, Olivia Wilde puts her own stamp on Cesc Gay’s play “Los vecinos de arriba,” which Gay made as a 2020 film known in English as both “Sentimental” and “The People Upstairs.” The story, revolving around two neighbor couples who experience […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Functioning as a companion to David Shadrack Smith’s “Public Access,” the provocatively titled documentary “Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story” educates viewers with a history lesson covering the wild high seas of a bygone era of personal media-making through the eyes of one colorful veteran and pioneer. Long before […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Alex Ross Perry follows his excellent “Pavements” by tackling the essay film with “Videoheaven,” a nearly 3-hour long analysis of the rise and fall of brick and mortar movie rental. Stimulating and satisfying for both older connoisseurs and curious cinephiles too young to have experienced the heyday of either mom-and-pop […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Viewers who come to “Supergirl” without the experience of having read the extraordinary, self-contained, 8-issue Eisner-nominated series by Tom King and Bilquis Evely might mistake director Craig Gillespie’s adaptation for just another installment in the almost automated line of big budget spectacles breathing screen life into the most popular DC […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson The feature directorial debut of established internet phenomenon and entertainment hyphenate Hayley Kiyoko – known unironically to her fans as “Lesbian Jesus” – carries with it a curious backstory becoming more and more common in the era of DIY media makers who came of age producing content for online platforms. […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Steven Spielberg, who will turn 80 this December, returns to the subject of aliens among us in “Disclosure Day,” his first feature since “The Fabelmans” in 2022. Now closer to the end than the beginning of one of the greatest and most storied Hollywood filmmaking careers, the master director continues […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson The cinematic precocity of director Kane Parsons is quickly emerging as one of the year’s big moviemaking stories. The 20-year-old filmmaker’s “Backrooms,” an unsettling journey through the looking glass, has frequently been cited in tandem with Curry Barker’s recently released “Obsession.” Barker is Parson’s senior by six years, and according […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan gives longtime pal Martin Short the celebrity documentary treatment in new Netflix movie “Marty, Life Is Short.” With a half century of show business experience under his belt, Short continues to perform at the age of 76 on stage and in the successful Hulu series “Only Murders […]