Crystal Harrell

2.5

Dogs Don’t Wear Pants

Dog's Don’t Wear Pants follows a widowed father who meets a dominatrix and enters into the world of BDSM.
Gamer (2009)

Exploring the Hyper-Violence and Societal Manipulation of Gamer

While glazed over with gratuitous amounts of gore, brutality, and overt sexuality, the 2009 science fiction film Gamer’s surface-level thrills house a time capsule—a message from the past that is even more relevant now than it was over ten years ago when the movie was released.
Image from 'The Guilty' 2018
5.0

The Guilty

Serving as the Danish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 91st Academy Awards, The Guilty is a thrilling drama that takes place entirely inside an emergency call center.
5.0

Shirkers

Shirkers tells the true story of how Tan and a group of friends attempted to make the first Singapore road movie as teenagers in the summer of 1992.
Image of Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem in 2018 film 'Everybody Knows'
3.0

Everybody Knows

Mystery is afoot in Asghar Farhadi’s Spanish thriller, which is set in the confines a European village where a wedding is to take place.
Image from Buck Run - Review from 2019 Palm Springs International Film Festival
2.0

Buck Run

Director Nick Frangione’s indie drama Buck Run follows 15-year-old Shaw as he copes with the death of his mother and goes to live with his estranged father in their rural Pennsylvania town.
Image from Hidden Man 2018
4.0

Hidden Man

Acting as the Chinese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 91st Academy Awards, this is the third installment of his action-packed film trilogy and based on the novel Xia Yin by author Zhang Beihai.
Image from the Indian film 'The Man Who Feels No Pain'
3.5

The Man Who Feels No Pain

The old adage goes, “no pain, no gain,” but that can be a problem when it’s impossible for you to feel any sort of pain even after getting hurt. Vasan Bala’s Hindi action comedy is blatant in its title, as it follows protagonist Surya who has a rare condition which prohibits him from feeling physical pain.
Image from film Cake (2018)
3.5

Cake

The personal developments and discoveries of one family as three grown siblings unite after their parents become ill.
Image from The Great Gatsby - Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan
2.0

The Great Gatsby

Baz Luhrmann’s movie adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, was held in much anticipation among the likes of literature junkies, DiCaprio fanatics, and box office skeptics.

Crystal Harrell

Writer

Anecdotist by nature, film critic by choice. My favorite directors are Christopher Nolan, Wes Anderson, Makoto Shinkai, and pre-2010 Tim Burton (but I’m partial to most movies with clever velociraptors and weird-looking cats).