To understand One Battle After Another, I want you to think about a garden. If you put time and effort into a garden, it will look nice. If you ignore the garden, then slowly and inevitably other ...

Eddington has so much going on that it’s easy to feel lost. Thankfully, our First Rule of Film Analysis holds true: if you compare the beginning to the end, narrative and thematic intention becomes ...

Melancholia has two layers. One is more obvious and familiar and shouldn’t surprise you in any way. The other is a bit more abstract and you’ll have to bear with me. The good news is, you’ll come away ...

If you want a quick explanation of A Complete Unknown, here it is. A Complete Unknown has two levels. The first is Bob Dylan’s journey into and out of the folk scene. Initially, it’s something he ...

Bishop Robert Barron had quite the response to Conclave. He said: If you are interested in a film about the Catholic Church that could have been written by the editorial board of the New York Times, ...

The Mist is a mostly straightforward movie that has a pretty negative view on human nature. When it seems the world is ending, how do people react? According to Stephen King and Frank Darabont—not ...

The end of Heretic is designed to make viewers wonder what information is relevant or irrelevant. For example, there’s a whole stretch of the film where Mr. Reed wants Barnes and Paxton to believe ...

The end of Possession can leave you at a complete loss, asking yourself, “What did I just watch?” But don’t give up hope! Possession provides inroads that give us the context necessary to piece ...

The ending of Terrifier 3 is brutal. Like…really brutal. Seemingly, Sienna is left with nothing. So it’s easy to think of the ending as a complete downer, as a pessimistic look at how life is ...

As big and seemingly confounding as Synecdoche, New York seems, it’s actually quite simple. The broader message is that we don’t have much time and we’re prone to waste time. Caden’s life has three ...

What is Transformers One about? Transformers One introduces the idea of “staying on protocol” as a challenge to viewers. It’s that message that you’re more than meets the eye. You have potential. But ...

The Substance is an immediate cult classic. It’s arguably the best body horror movie of the 21st century. But also has meaningful, necessary things to say about our relationship with aging and modern ...