I’m not sure why I and seemingly everyone else basically shrugged when Dark Waters came out at the end of last year.

The Invisible Man is not the H.G. Wells tale you probably know. It does follow the usual pattern of the title character engaging in the basest impulses of humanity, but most of the rest of his story is different. Most importantly, this isn’t his story.

As the lights went down in the theater, I thought to myself, “what a disappointing title The Assistant is.” It seems instantly forgettable, like The Interpreter or The Accountant , both of which are real movies with major stars that I figure most people don’t remember. Then the title came up on the screen and I knew instantly I was wrong, and that this was very deliberate. Because the title, and where it’s placed on the screen—in small font in the far lower right corner—show us exactly where our

This year’s Documentary Oscar nominees tackled some pretty lofty topics. The war in Syria, tensions between U.S. and Chinese business practices, the eroding of democracy, and, of course, beekeeping in Macedonia. OK, I’m poking a little fun, that last one might not seem so weighty, but its inclusion with those others shows how strong the movie, Honeyland , really is. And it’s probably the best of a very impressive group, and the one most likely to endure.

Film critic Justin Chang wrote in the LA Times, “It’s just the Oscars—but my God, it matters that Parasite won best picture.” Chang is right about pretty much everything he says in his piece, but we should probably acknowledge that first part. Yes, it is just the Oscars, and it is possible to overstate the importance of this. When’s the last time you really heard anyone talk about The King’s Speech , The Artist , Argo , or Birdman , all of which won best picture in the last decade? We movie

I only just discovered director Osgood Perkins last week, but I’ve now seen all three of his movies, and I’ve noticed a pattern—on paper, it doesn’t seem like any of them should work, but in practice, they really do.

Each year, in amongst the annual Pixar and Dreamworks entries for the Best Animated Feature award, there’s always one or two nominees that pretty much no one has ever heard of. Usually they’re from outside the U.S., and usually there’s almost no way for most of us to see them. But, there’s reason to hope this might be changing. This year’s film that fits the bill, the French movie I Lost My Body , is available on Netflix, indicating the opportunities to see some of these may be increasing.

I didn’t get a chance to talk about the brilliant South Korean film Parasite when it first came out, so I’m excited it’s gotten a theatrical re-release following its Best Picture Oscar nomination.

My colleague Sam McConnell spoke a little while back about how there haven’t been any good movies based on video games. And while most of this is due to actual poor quality, I wonder if some of it isn’t a branding or framing problem. Because if you didn’t know better, the newly minted 10-time Oscar nominee 1917 could easily be mistaken for such a movie.

Certainly I would never say director Greta Gerwig has improved on Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women , but while there have been very good film adaptations of the novel before, Gerwig has found a way to enhance it such that this may be the best possible movie of Little Women .