Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Cinema is overflowing with tales of loveable grifters. Han Solo, Lisbeth Salander, Danny (and Debbie) Ocean and even Aladdin are all examples of loveable cinematic criminals, and such a list could go...
View ArticleOeuvre: Weerasethakul: Mekong Hotel
What makes a film a film? And beyond that, what differentiates a narrative feature from a documentary? Is length involved? The presence of narratives? Do there need to be characters? Does there have to...
View ArticleBohemian Rhapsody
Queen is a rock outfit synonymous with audacity and bombast. If their meteoric rise must exist on screen, it should transcend the formalities of a standard biopic. That genre only dulls the band’s...
View ArticleSuspiria
Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria isn’t really a remake of Dario Argento’s 1977 classic. Instead, it takes the mythology and set up of that film and unfurls in slower, sadder and subtler directions than the...
View ArticleBodied
Anyone who watched the final act of Eminem pseudo-biopic 8 Mile and wished it had been directed by Edgar Wright is about to find their new favorite film in Joseph Kahn’s Bodied, a satire about PC...
View ArticleRediscover: Oculus
The best horror movies—even those with roaming zombies, bloodthirsty monsters and supernatural spooks—are the ones that concern themselves with more earthbound, real-life fears. Michael Myers is the...
View ArticleThe Other Side of the Wind
Shot sporadically between 1970 and 1976, The Other Side of the Wind then sat vaulted, incomplete and unedited, for another 42 years, with seemingly little likelihood that Orson Welles’ final work would...
View ArticleThe Grief of Others
First premiered on the festival circuit but only now seeing theatrical release, The Grief of Others is clearly the work of Patrick Wang, whose 2011 intimate epic In the Family approached anguish with...
View ArticlePossum
The bleak UK drama Possum is fueled by a loving homage to ‘70s British horror, and its central relationship seems drawn out of the darkest work of Harold Pinter. It builds to a riveting final act...
View ArticleStreaming Hell: Look Out, Officer!
Primarily familiar to Western audiences as the gonzo auteur behind goofball epics like Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer, Stephen Chow is a Hong Kong luminary whose reputation is rightly deserved. Yet...
View ArticleWelcome to Mercy
Directed by Tommy Bertelsen from a script by its star, Kristen Ruhlin, Welcome to Mercy carries with it reminders of the most frustrating episodes of “The X-Files.” A wonderfully atmospheric film full...
View ArticleEl Angel
El Angel is a misleading title, yet not in the ways you’d expect. We’re introduced to a wide-eyed teenager named Carlos Robledo Puch (Lorenzo Ferro), nicknamed “Carlitos,” as he steals and dances his...
View ArticleOeuvre: Weerasethakul: Cemetery of Splendor
Every Apichatpong Weerasethakul film shares a few features. Each is an exploration of a major theme of cinema history. Each combines, in myriad ways, fantasy with reality. Each is also a reflection of...
View ArticlePostcards from London
There are few places whose very names, through some sort of cultural consensus, conjure images of counterculture. Soho is one of those places, a setting so attuned to the middle-finger-to-authority...
View ArticleThe Long Dumb Road
Paths converge in indie dramedy The Long Dumb Road, a road-trip movie that merges a coming-of-age story with some serious arrested development. Directed by Hannah Fidell, who co-wrote the script with...
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Rediscover: Beyond the Hills
Alina (Cristina Flutur) has rushed by train to visit her friend Voichita (Cosmina Stratan), now a devout nun at a small monastery. The two grew up in an orphanage together, where Alina had been...
View ArticleOutlaw King
The specter of Braveheart hangs over David Mackenzie’s Outlaw King, which follows the efforts of Robert the Bruce (Chris Pine) to unify Scotland under his banner against the English invasion. Both...
View ArticleChef Flynn
“There are times with Flynn where I feel I’ve lost my identity of who I am.” This resentment is expressed by frustrated filmmaker Meg Daniels, whose son Flynn McGarry is the culinary child prodigy at...
View ArticleJinn
With Jinn, writer/director Nijla Mu’min places gender, religion, race, sex and identity at the center of her narrative about Summer (Zoe Renee), a charismatic, seventeen-year-old black girl who spends...
View ArticleHoly Hell! A Bug’s Life Turns 20
Long before Ant-Man became one of Marvel’s endless stream of hits, there were in fact a whole slew of loveable cinematic ants charming audiences and critics alike. 1998’s A Bug’s Life, Pixar’s second...
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