At The Movies, July 20, 2018

Dare Glitch Project: A Review Of Unfriended: Dark Web: "Angry and nonconciliatory, Stephen Susco’s superbly focused Unfriended: Dark Web arrives in the marketplace with a key tagline: “The most evil film Blumhouse has ever made." I won’t call the movie evil, but it’s wholeheartedly malicious, with imagery in its quest for unserved riches and simple survival that evokes the 1970s urban legend of “snuff” films in a contemporary setting, and bears a certain Salò  tang about death coming for those who give up control to others in society who demand it of you."

The Humane Face: A Review of Eighth Grade: "Eighth Grade is a microcosm of Fisher’s face while also a brightly colored cauldron of essential identity formation under torrential stress. The filmmaking has Romanian simplicity: Face, shoulders, moving forward, plodding forward. Kayla’s expressions are often stunned but electric, tremulous features that come quickly to life: blushing, fearful eyes and an alienated “huh?” when she’s half-listening, always half-a-beat behind. Her defeated body language in a deadly green swimsuit at a backyard swim party fairly shouts, but Burnham delivers shivery, small, quiet images, too, like a splinter of a smacked, cracked phone screen drawing a flawless pinprick of blood from Kayla’s thumb.

World on Fire: A Review of Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You: "Best two-word review I’ve heard this year: “The fuck?” The woman walking from a packed Friday opening night show of Boots Riley’s rich fever scream of an activist workplace comedy, Sorry to Bother You prompted her companion: “The fuck,” he replied, as she nodded her head sagely.

The Most Dangerous Gang: A Review of The First Purge: "History, heartbeats, hope in the face of militarized government opposition."