Mr. Jimmy
Pretty much everyone is a fan of something, but for some people, their love for their favorite things gets taken to extremes. This is exactly the case for Akio Sakurai, a Japanese man whose love for...
View ArticleAstrakan
Shot on 16mm film in the picturesque Morvan region of central France, Astrakan seems to offer an idyllic location for a coming-of-age film. Yet director David Depesseville, who comes from Morvan,...
View ArticleHoly Hell! Matchstick Men Turns 20
Any good con story will play with its audience, and Matchstick Men does just that. Thankfully, it also does a lot more. Adapting a 2002 novel by Eric Garcia (rather quickly, it seems, given the film’s...
View ArticleMutiny in Heaven: The Birthday Party
It is easy for Nick Cave fans to feel inundated with new material these days. Beyond an upcoming US tour with Colin Greenwood and in-store appearances to support Faith, Hope and Carnage, an interview...
View ArticleOeuvre: Altman: Quintet
Quintet is one of Robert Altman’s most ambitious works, sprawling, immersive and thought-provoking. It’s also one of his most incoherent, confusing, muddled and mixed. Regardless, Altman’s 1979...
View ArticleGood Boy
Dating in the 21st century is wild. Like most things, there are apps for it. The only problem is that social media is notorious for allowing people to craft representations of themselves that may or...
View ArticleAristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
Adapting Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s novel of the same name, writer/director Aitch Alberto errs too much on the side of caution with Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. That’s a loaded...
View ArticleAmerikatsi
“Never lose your smile…Now fly away little stork. Carry us with you in your heart and one day you will return home.” These are the words spoken in Michael A. Goorjian’s Amerikatsi by our young...
View ArticleMy Animal
Werewolf movies are notoriously difficult to pull off. They either end up extremely smart and unique — Ginger Snaps, An American Werewolf in London, Dog Soldiers — or they lean too far into the cheese...
View ArticleRotting in the Sun
There are so many penises in the opening act of Rotting in the Sun that you might think you’ve wandered into the wrong kind of theatre or happened upon a porn channel. It’s an unconventional choice for...
View ArticleRevisit: They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
People from all walks of life will flock to the limited chance of a high-dollar prize amid an economic depression, even at the expense of their own soul. That’s the overarching message of 1969’s They...
View ArticleJoyce Carol Oates: A Body in the Service of Mind
Joyce Carol Oates, one of the most prolific American writers, is not a performer. She says so herself in the opening minutes of Stig Björkman’s documentary about her life, a film the director had...
View ArticleHello Dankness
The art of abstract filmmaking is often overlooked by the masses. Its resilience and recent resurgence in pseudo-mainstream films such as the horror curiosity Skinamarink and the sleeper Enys Men have...
View ArticleFrom the Vaults of Streaming Hell: Antibirth
In terms of streaming video, 2023 will go down as the year everything got worse. You need at least a half-dozen subscriptions to capture all the shows and movies you like, if not more, while the...
View ArticleEl Conde
Pablo Larraín made an international splash with No, a political drama that uses a grainy digital aesthetic to document the successful effort of unseating Augusto Pinochet from power. The dictator is...
View ArticleOeuvre: Altman: A Perfect Couple
Robert Altman’s A Perfect Couple opens on a series of nested boxes, their scope revealed by a gradually ascending crane shot, eventually surveying a diorama-esque assortment of twinned units. Seated...
View ArticleCassandro
Lucha Libre is a particularly unhinged spectacle. More theatrical and less rule-bound than both boxing and American wrestling, Mexico’s tradition of “free fight” has been something of a national...
View ArticleDumb Money
Dumb Money wants to tell a David versus Goliath story without fully understanding David. It focuses on the short squeeze of GameStop stock that happened in early January 2021. Attention to the stock...
View ArticleSatanic Hispanics
Is it really Halloween season without a new horror anthology to enjoy? From classics like Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath to modern favorites such as Trick ‘r Treat and the ongoing V/H/S series, such...
View ArticleOutlaw Johnny Black
It’s a tall order to create a film solely based on the affection of ones that came before it. Magic can’t be recaptured, and the legendary statuses of those films make it almost impossible to pay...
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