Danilo Castro

Adolescence gets a loudmouthed love letter with Everybody Wants Some!!, the latest outing from writer/director Richard Linklater. Dropping the grandiose ambition of Boyhood (2014) and returning to his Dazed and Confused (1993) groove, the Texas filmmaker takes fans back to the days of crop tops, Van Halen, and mustaches to die for. Marketed as a “spiritual sequel” to the stoner classic, and swappi...[Read More]

Anticipation for Midnight Special was high heading into the film’s release. Perhaps, even a little too high. So much had been said about director Jeff Nichols and haunting muse Michael Shannon that the Internet had many thinking it would rocket off into another dimension of quality. That it would be this generation’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), E.T. (1982), and Starman (1984) wrappe...[Read More]

Knight of Cups tells the story of a Hollywood screenwriter (Christian Bale) who laments his purpose in life. Strippers, parties, money, family dysfunction, the works. Each interaction he shares comes and goes with ghostly ease, stepping up to drop their two cents of disgruntlement before receding back into the evening’s debauchery. Vice and vulgarity become a source of addiction, a cocktail that g...[Read More]

The mythology of Steve Jobs knows no bounds. A Zen Buddhist who berated his employees, an absentee father who supported his daughter, and an underdog who spearheaded the biggest company in the world, all through the guise of glasses and a black turtleneck. Was he a good guy? Was he even a genius? Such questions have been asked time and time again, often with an ambiguous response behind them. Judg...[Read More]

Even before any form of narrative kicks in, The Witch wastes no time establishing a mood that’s toxic for the faint of heart. Unsettling close-ups, a banishment of undetermined nature, and a disgraced Puritan family make for the forest under the frightening stillness of a looming long shot. Matters are made worse by the wailing choruses that undercut each of the film’s opening images, drizzling dr...[Read More]

Default swaps, synthetic CDO, and subprime loans are not the first things that come to mind when watching a star-studded Hollywood drama. In fact, unless one happens to be a Wall Street stock advisor, these terms sound like nothing more than a superfluous runaround to ensure that the men in charge stay in charge – at least, that’s how narrator Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) sells it. As the eyes, ea...[Read More]

Quentin Tarantino can do whatever he wants. At this point in his career, twenty-two years removed from the pop-culture milestone Pulp Fiction (1994), the lowbrow aficionado has dabbled in everything from Kung Fu (Kill Bill, Vol. 1 & 2 [2003/04]) and Blaxploitation (Jackie Brown [1997]) to world war (Inglorious Basterds [2009]) and revisionist westerns (Django Unchained [2012]). Each crucially ...[Read More]

Movies about journalistic crusades often run the risk of appearing pretentious, preachy, or some uncomfortable combination of both. That the best examples, namely All The President’s Men (1976) and more recently, Zodiac (2007), can flip guys with rolled up sleeves and notepads into the pantheon of American heroism speaks to the allure of true justice. Such was the case in 2001, when a Boston Globe...[Read More]

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has come to embody the everyman for modern audiences. As the hopeless romantic in (500) Days of Summer (2009), the cancer patient in 50/50 (2011), or the naïve cop in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), his subtle charm and likable demeanor have fallen in line with the iconic average Joes of yesteryear. In the past decade alone, he’s gone from child star to indie A-lister (Brick [20...[Read More]