Asher Luberto, Author at The Playlist

‘Dream Horse’ Is A Light, Sweet Film With Yet Another Solid Toni Collette Performance [Review]

May 28, 2021 11:47 am

"Dream Horse" is exactly what you expect from a movie called "Dream Horse." It's light, sweetly frisky, and warmly inspiring, with a lead performance from Toni Colette keeping things on track. Colette plays...

‘Cliff Walkers’: Zhang Yimou’s Riff On James Bond Is Perhaps His Most Restrained Film Yet [Review]

Asher Luberto

May 21, 2021 2:41 pm

News, Reviews

With its spies, secrets, and super-secret code names, Zhang Yimou's "Cliff Walkers" is seemingly the Chinese director's version of James Bond. But that's where the comparisons end. While the Bond films are sex...

‘Stowaway’ Is A Surprisingly Tense Moral Thriller In Space [Review]

Asher Luberto

April 27, 2021 3:15 pm

News, Reviews

Space has always served as a vast, grand, and mysterious canvas for directors to paint and project their metaphorical journeys on. Much like the desert in Westerns, the journey through space is a deeply intima...

‘Jakob’s Wife’: Travis Stevens’ Feminist Vampire Tale Is A B-Movie Done Right [Review]

Asher Luberto

April 23, 2021 1:36 pm

News, Reviews

Travis Stevens' "Jakob's Wife" is a film about a universal fear and the horror of becoming a housewife. Built on a clever premise, the film is executed seamlessly. It's a great example of a B-movie done right:...

‘We Broke Up’ Is Delicious, Satisfying And A Tad Overstuffed Wedding Movie [Review]

Asher Luberto

April 17, 2021 11:30 am

News, Reviews

Wedding movies are a lot like wedding cakes: usually delicious, satisfying and a tad overstuffed. So it's nice to get a slice of that savory formula in "We Broke Up," writer/director Jeff Rosenberg's entry to ...

‘Every Breath You Take’: Thriller Starring Casey Affleck & Michelle Monaghan Is No ‘Gone Baby Gone’ Reunion [Review]

Asher Luberto

April 10, 2021 11:15 am

News, Reviews

Admittedly, it's strange to start a review with a list of complaints, but the new thriller "Every Breath You Take," directed by Vaughn Stein, written by David Murray, and starring Casey Affleck, just begs for ...

‘Happily’: A Refreshing And Subversive Marital Horror-Comedy [Review]

Asher Luberto

April 2, 2021 2:36 pm

News, Reviews

The horror-comedy can be tricky to pull off. But when it's done right, it can deliver shocking results. In the haunted-house-sex-farce "Happily," a whole lot of shocks are crammed into one neat package, arrivi...

The Courier Benedict Cumberbatch Rachel Brosnahan

‘The Courier’: Benedict Cumberbatch Is Superb As An Everyman Spy In This Cold War Tale [Review]

Asher Luberto

March 30, 2021 1:46 pm

News, Reviews

The 1963 Wynne trial, in which Greville Wynne was indicted for spying on Soviet Russia, is an event absolutely ripe for cinematic adaptation. Held in a bunker in Moscow, the accused Wynne spent two years behin...

‘Come True’: Wes Craven & David Cronenberg Sensibilities Merge In A Nightmare About Sleep Paralysis [Review]

Asher Luberto

March 14, 2021 2:52 pm

News, Reviews

Anthony Scott Burns--filmmaker, musician, and half the team behind "Our House"--branches into science fiction with the eerily hypnotic "Come True," starring Julia Sarah Stone. Take some Wes Craven, fold in Dav...

‘Blithe Spirit’ Is A Wildly Uneven, Repetitive Ghost Of A Comedy [Review]

Asher Luberto

February 26, 2021 1:47 pm

News, Reviews

How to describe "Blithe Spirit," a play that switches genres more times than one can count? Is it a comedy, a drama, a romance, a murder mystery? Is it art or exploitation? It's, actually, all of the above. ...

Author Asher Luberto