Ted Pillow

With a stellar cast and sharp dialogue, the film turns complex financial concepts into crazy thriller about the financial crash of 2008. But many people missed this incredible film.

David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars is an unflinching, surreal look at celebrity culture. Choosing a film from the uncompromising and unpredictable David Cronenberg always feels like a calculated risk. Although not all of his movies work, even the ones that fail are usually spectacular failures. For example, I’m still not sure what I think…

Lots of people didn’t like Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant! “Is it a slight drama or a black comedy?” they wondered. “And why is the main character such an idiot? Or is he actually some kind of warped genius? Are we supposed to like him? And what’s with the campy, 60s kitsch soundtrack?” I understand those…

What starts as a playful rom-com spirals into a chaotic, genre-bending nightmare of a film. Something Wild is a colorful, offbeat dark comedy from director Jonathan Demme that delivers on the promise of its title. What starts as a goofy ’80s rom-com depicting a fanciful weekend tryst between a soon-to-be Wall Street VP (Jeff Daniels)…

Before The Wolf of Wall Street, before HBO’s Industry, there was Glengarry Glen Ross. Possibly the best film about capitalism ever made, Glengarry Glen Ross hauntingly recreates its seismic forces in the interpersonal relationships between lowly salesmen in a dingy real estate office. Each interaction between these sharply drawn characters is a collision of constantly…

This movie in a nutshell? Hmm: Clooney, existential hitman, builds guns and bonds with Italian prostitutes.

10 Words or Fewer Summary: Delusional mall security guard takes job way too seriously.

Dead Man is my favorite work from auteur Jim Jarmusch—a “psychedelic western” (as Jarmusch himself called it) that follows William Blake (no, not that William Blake—this one’s an accountant, played by Johnny Depp). Duped into traveling to the rugged frontier of 1800s America, Blake endures a series of increasingly strange and horrifying calamities. Beautifully shot…

Pioneers panic after realizing their guide is completely lost.

No, not Interstellar. We know you’ve already seen that. Digital effects may be corroding the heart and imagination of big-budget science fiction, but they’ve also allowed independent filmmakers to work on a scale previously out of their price range. Case in point: Europa Report, a sci-fi indie in which director Sebastian Cordero creates an effective…

So bad it’s good? Nope – these 80s cult classics may be trashy, dated, bizarre, disturbing, juvenile, and violent, but they’re also some of the most enjoyable films ever made; they’re just darn good. Miami Connection Weirdness Scale: 10/10 Well, the opening sentence of its Wikipedia plot summary is, “A cocaine deal in Miami is…

10 Words or Fewer Summary: Wannabe stuntman raises money to beat up dying stepfather. Everyone has a dumb comedy they inexplicably love, but I feel like my obsession with Andy Samberg’s Hot Rod is, well…explicable. Hot Rod is an absurdist (read: silly) comedy and it may take a few viewings to register — I thought…