The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
One scene in The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry hints at what could have been true about director Hans Canosa’s film, and it does not even involve the eponymous character. Indeed, it does not even really...
View ArticleGraves and Bones
You know that movie where a couple whose marriage is on the rocks ends up staying in an unnerving location that turns out to be haunted, either by spirits or the couple’s own neuroses? Well, Icelandic...
View ArticleDark Glasses
Dario Argento is best known for such early works as the 1977 Suspiria, the Technicolor fever dream about a young woman who discovers that her dance school is run by a coven of witches. Once upon a...
View ArticleOeuvre: Scorsese: The Color of Money
By the mid-’80s, Martin Scorsese had already established his versatility as a filmmaker despite his narrow reputation as a chronicler of male violence and mean streets. In fact, he’d proven his deft...
View ArticleTriangle of Sadness
The satirical targets of Triangle of Sadness do not require precision. Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund, who won the Palme d’Or for this film, usually has something specific on his mind. His...
View ArticleTÁR
A conductor’s power must be intoxicating. They control dozens of musicians, all of whom watch their hands with unrelenting attention. The hero of Todd Field’s TÁR is aware of this responsibility, then...
View ArticleEternal Spring
The fight for religious freedom in modern-day China is a topic many in the West are generally aware of, yet few in much depth or detail. Part of the problem is state censorship ― even in the...
View ArticleDecision to Leave
There’s a scene in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2001 horror masterpiece, Pulse, where a college student explains a computer program that causes white dots to float around a black screen. The dots that touch one...
View ArticleThe Other Tom
The Other Tom hinges on the specific, real-life implications of social issues that are often spoken about in abstract generalities. The pharmaceutical industry’s outsized influence on family medicine,...
View ArticleRevisit: It Follows
After decades of horror films, US film-viewers are likely to find something inherently menacing in a camera panning across the average US suburban street of tidy brick homes shaded by trees laden with...
View ArticleStars at Noon
In Stars at Noon, Claire Denis gives the spy thriller her unique spin. Like her sci-fi film High Life, she eschews genre staples and typical thrills to look at something deeper. Anyone who expects a...
View ArticleCat Daddies
The idea behind Cat Daddies is sort of an admirable one, but before we even get to the movie’s unfortunate shortcomings, there is also a whiff of the patronizing in its intentions. Early on, the human...
View ArticleAccident Man: Hitman’s Holiday
Seeing Scott Adkins’ name on a poster or cast list can be a matter of trepidation for action fans. Going into a blockbuster film knowing that the man’s skills will likely be wasted has been the norm...
View ArticleSummit Fever
Julian Gilbey’s latest film, Summit Fever takes viewers on a trip to the Alps where two best friends Michael (Freddie Thorp) and Jean Pierre (Michel Biel) attempt to take on three of the world’s most...
View ArticleTicket to Paradise
There’s been hubbub in the annals of Film Twitter recently surrounding the lack of attention paid to lighting in modern mainstream American movies. Usually the issue is dimness — digital cameras can...
View ArticleOeuvre: Scorsese: The Last Temptation of Christ
In October of 1988, terrorists set fire to the Saint Michel cinema in Paris. Thirteen people were burned, four of them severely. Far-right Catholic separatists were to blame, and the Archbishop of...
View ArticleSlash/Back
There is a charmingly DIY nature to the production values in Slash/Back, a very low-budget thriller about a group of teenagers who face down a threat that, far from being extraterrestrial, is almost...
View ArticleAftersun
If you’re paying attention, Aftersun gives you everything you need to know about its premise in the opening shot. It’s a brief segment of MiniDV footage shot on a ‘90s camcorder by an 11-year-old girl,...
View ArticleThe Return of Tanya Tucker
In the inevitably triumphant final act of the documentary The Return of Tanya Tucker, in which the veteran country singer’s hard work with young’un Brandi Carlile pays off come Grammy time, you can...
View ArticleRevisit: One False Move
Great plot structure is easy to overlook, which might be why One False Move has been somewhat lost to time and, until recently, to the unintended consequences of general unavailability on home video....
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