Name: Cotter Interactive
Price range: $

Why was he banished?: Ralph Ineson in “The Witch” (© 2016 - A24)

'The Witch' by Robert Eggers

A special kind of dread

Instead of jump scares, the increasing sense of dread in The Witch arises from the uncertainty of how people are going to behave.

Angela Harmon

Apr 05, 2016 Articles 2 minute read

Grímur Hákonarson's 'Rams'

Hard as horns, soft as fleece

Rams draws you in with its vast, cold landscapes and hooks you with a simple story of two old hearts thawing out.

Ryan Dellaquila

Mar 29, 2016 Articles 2 minute read

Life is not a field of roses for Hap and Leonard.

Sundance TV’s 'Hap and Leonard'

Hap and Leonard depends on the clichéd Hollywood notion that folks at the bottom of the economic ladder are all actually remarkably intelligent, witty, and, under the skin, brothers in capitalistic striving.

Rick Soisson

Mar 08, 2016 Articles 3 minute read

Taking each other’s inner lives for granted: Courtenay and Rampling.

Andrew Haigh's '45 Years'

45 years of marriage and a postscript of unanswered questions

45 Years is like a Rorschach inkblot onto which we can project many layers of meaning. We know that Geoff and Kate are stunned and puzzled, but much of what is going on inside each of them is left to our imagination.

Victor L. Schermer

Mar 05, 2016 Articles 5 minute read

Staring down death: Leonardo DiCaprio. (© 2015 - Twentieth Century Fox)

Inarritu's 'The Revenant'

We are all savages

The Revenant is an example of a microgenre, the Ghost Western, a film in which a tormented white, male protagonist must avenge himself so his ghost can rest.

Paula Berman

Mar 01, 2016 Articles 5 minute read

Fox TV's 'Lucifer'

Redeeming the ultimate bad boy

Lucifer is showing promise of something more sophisticated than a simple good vs. evil story set in a flashy fantasy environment. We are seeing a story unfold that questions the very nature of good and evil, and the proper place of both in today’s world.

Gary L. Day

Feb 27, 2016 Articles 3 minute read

A friend betrayed: Cannavale and Essandoh. (all photos © 2015 HBO)

'Vinyl' on HBO

Deep tracks

Vinyl is Scorsese at his most Scorsese. Unfortunately, the master offers little that we haven’t seen before.

Michael Fisher

Feb 20, 2016 Articles 5 minute read

A bravura portrayal: Gooding as Simpson. (photos © 2015, FX Networks)

FX's 'The People v. O.J. Simpson'

Revisiting the O.J. case

O.J. Simpson was not treated like any other defendant arrested for a double homicide. The characters involved aren’t the suspects you expect in a domestic murder — they’re squares in the crazy quilt of American celebrity.

Armen Pandola

Feb 19, 2016 Articles 4 minute read

Jane (Bella Heathcote) and Lizzie (James): no shrinking English maidens. (Photo by Jay Maidment - © 2015 CTMG, Inc.)

'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies'

Mr. Darcy slays zombies

It’s hard to get over your first Elizabeth Bennet (Greer Garson) and Mr. Darcy (Laurence Olivier), but Pride and Prejudice and Zombies adds two more candidates to my list of favorites.

Naomi Orwin

Feb 11, 2016 Articles 3 minute read

John Ridley's 'American Crime,' season two

Too many shades of gray

The second season of American Crime raises intelligent questions: Can a teenager struggling with his sexual orientation and rough sex fantasies actually be raped, and is there any hope of establishing that legally? Or is Taylor an odd variation of the Victorian heroine who dreams of being ravished, but then decides that wasn’t such a good idea after the fact?