Standing Up, Falling Down
There are some movies you are just predisposed to enjoy. Standing Up, Falling Down is that movie for dreamers raised in Nassau County on Long Island who failed in the fruition of those aspirations and...
View ArticleOeuvre: Tarkovsky: The Sacrifice
The Sacrifice, Andrei Tarkovsky’s final film, is less a benediction than an exorcism. Though possessed of the same calm movement and patient observation that defined the director’s cinema, its...
View ArticleEmma.
Jane Austen’s novel “Emma” is many things: a witty romance, an interesting exploration a class, the literary flashpoint that eventually would lead to society’s modern obsession with step-sibling...
View ArticleThe Invisible Man
Unseen threats make for one of the most unnerving forms of horror and suspense, and Universal’s reboot of The Invisible Man offers that in spades, taking the premise of H.G. Wells’ classic sci-fi novel...
View ArticleGuns Akimbo
Daniel Radcliffe has made some interesting choices for roles post-Harry Potter. His performance as a magical corpse in Swiss Army Man made that one of the strangest and most enjoyable movies of 2016,...
View ArticleThe Whistlers
In an age of streaming and ubiquitous screens, there’s a lot of talk about the death of cinema. Perhaps the age of using larger-than-life figures made of whirring and of light to work through social,...
View ArticleDisappearance at Clifton Hills
Written by James Schultz and director Albert Shin, Disappearance at Clifton Hills is a stylish puzzle box where the enigma matters less than the characters ensnared within it. A noir at its core, this...
View ArticleRevisit: Hulk
Speaking with The New York Times in the summer of 2003, shortly after the release of his wrongly maligned comic book blockbuster Hulk, Ang Lee offered this, presumably as an explanation for a movie...
View ArticleSaint Frances
Indie comedies about late bloomers are a dime a dozen, but few have the specificity of observation and honesty that pervades Saint Frances. The film’s comedy tends toward warmth, but there are razor...
View ArticleHoly Hell! High Fidelity Turns 20
While High Fidelity is again on the radar thanks to Hulu’s new series, Stephen Frears’ 2000 film adaptation of the Nick Hornby novel has remained popular as it moved from VHS to DVD to Blu-ray to...
View ArticleOeuvre: Argento: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
With its kaleidoscopic colors, precise camera compositions and innate mastery of paranoia, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage stands as one of the most impressive feature debuts in cinema history, as...
View ArticleOnward
The once unstoppable animation juggernaut Pixar has long settled into a reliable groove of Disney films that are serviceable more than revelatory. Onward, the studio’s latest, has a nourishing...
View ArticleThe Burnt Orange Heresy
Never a consistent screen presence, although always a fascinating one, Mick Jagger hasn’t taken on a substantial acting role in nearly 20 years, since his supporting turn as a high-end procurer in The...
View ArticleWendy
“There once was…” “This is a story about…” These are regular refrains you’ll hear in the work of Benh Zeitlin. In 2012, these words were part of the periodic voiceover narration of Beasts of the...
View ArticleExtra Ordinary
Sometimes charm is reason enough to recommend a film, even if everything else about the project feels a little fly-by-night. Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman’s horror-comedy Extra Ordinary may not hit all...
View ArticleBacurau
Although set in the future, Bacurau is tastefully old-fashioned. Directors Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles evoke thrillers of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s right from the opening credits and...
View ArticleHope Gap
The uncommonly tender and honest romantic drama Hope Gap depicts a couple exiting its third decade of marriage when the foundation underneath them collapses. A husband suddenly realizes he wants...
View ArticleThe Wild Goose Lake
Diao Yinan’s The Wild Goose Lake is a film of concrete aesthetics, of precise framings of looming city buildings and spacious rural landscapes, of figures squirreled away in the shadow of the...
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Rediscover: The Inland Sea
The Japanese can boast that they’re one of the few people never to suffer the indignity of colonization. The culture of this island nation has long been unique, a fascinating enigma for all foreigners...
View ArticleSwallow
Disordered eating, and aberrant behavior in general, often stems from a craving for control, and in Swallow it doesn’t take long to see why Hunter (Haley Bennett), a young, newly pregnant housewife,...
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