The Big Picture Magazine
Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Chloe Sevigny, Tom Waits… The cast of Jim Jarmusch’s newest film is an impressive list of well-known character actors. These people might also be the only ones who could pull off a Jim Jarmusch film about the zombie apocalypse. And they almost do. The film begins with two policemen entering the […]
If you hated Hereditary (2018), you’re likely to hate Ari Aster’s sophomore film, Midsommar (2019), too. Even if you appreciate or even love Hereditary, there’s still a good 50/50 chance you’ll come out of Midsommar feeling disgusted, bored or a bit of both. Midsommar follows Dani Ardor (Florence Pugh) who, after a family tragedy, tags […]
I recently saw Crazy Rich Asians, and afterwards joked that it’s one of the most interesting of the Disney cartoon-princess movies. Man—”Cinderella” is, apparently, immortal. The best way to understand this movie, I think, is to see it as a folktale. Which, after all, most romcoms essentially are. And doing so brings up many of […]
Gratuitous splatter-fest or underrated masterpiece? Big Picture critic Thomas Puhr reviews Darren Aronofsky’s latest, Mother!
Simultaneously a creepy horror movie and a witty comedy, Get Out is the debut feature from actor-turned-director Jordan Peele, who also wrote and produced. Influenced by the 1975 cult classic The Stepford Wives, Peele challenges us with a tale where a black man gets trapped in a house with a deranged white family. Peele’s script […]
The always watchable Casey Affleck has already picked up a Golden Globe, with an Oscar likely to follow, for his fine work in writer-director Kenneth Lonergan’s expertly textured, evocatively slow-burning Manchester By The Sea. Affleck plays Boston janitor Lee Chandler, who returns to his titular Massachusetts hometown after the death of his brother and finds […]
To give you an impression of how disappointing and utterly miscalculated Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon really is, let me say that it contains a scene in which a character engages in heartbroken sex with an iced-over corpse, and your gut response somehow turns out to be, “Is that honestly all you’ve got?” It […]
The best parents loosen the ties to allow for a little self discovery, but where’s the line? Overly strict parenting makes a casualty of confidence, whereas complete freedom comes with a price of its own. This balance tips too much towards the latter for Minnie (Bel Powley), The Diary of a Teenage Girl‘s protagonist. Adapted […]