With yet another year of movies behind us, it’s never too early to start looking ahead to next awards season! The 2022-23 season is already chock-full of big-name directors and actors vying for Academy Awards. What are some films we can expect to see in the conversation next year? Will any of these films be […]
40 Films to Watch for the 2023 Oscars
Close (2022) is a Belgian drama film from writer-director Lukas Dhont. It stars Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele as two best friends who begin to drift apart when their classmates begin to question how intimate they’ve become with one another. It debuted at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where it tied for the Grand […]
Foreign Film Fridays: “Close” (Belgium, 2022)
In a remote religious community, the women have finally had enough. Enough of what? The men. And their violence. Their savage beatings. Rape. No one is safe from them, not even their own little children. So a group of women gather in a hay loft to discuss what to do about it. Do they do […]
Women Talking
By C.J. Hirschfield (January 17, 2023) Two years ago, an extraordinary documentary on Russian opposition party leader Alexei Navalny was recorded. The film has just been released; he has not. Having been charged with everything from fraud to having created an extremist group “with the purpose of inciting hatred toward officials and oligarchs,” he currently […]
Navalny: An Ongoing Thriller
Inisherin is a (fictional) island off the coast of Ireland. It is 1923. The civil war (“A bad do, that.”) can be heard but, on the island, there is nothing to do but toddle off down the pub or gossip in the general store, saving up the details for confession. And, in this world, Colm, […]
Film Review: The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
Martin McDonagh is one of our greatest living playwrights, with his work being widely produced, from the sacred stages of Broadway to the smallest public theatres in Asia, and everywhere in between, his penchant for darkly comical morality tales being the source of many fascinating discussions under the direction of a range of artists who […]
The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
I have the fondest memories of watching Top Gun back in 1986. It was a great year, I was in my second year in Junior College and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I was just living in the moment and hanging around with friends every chance I got. My […]
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Listening to a Russian oligarch and an American luxury yacht captain drunkenly exchange clichés about socialism versus capitalism over the ship’s PA system strikes me as farce without tragedy — and the joke is that it’s Woody Harrelson as the captain whose aggressive about socialism and the Russian who sounds like an OAN reporter. Good […]
Ship of fools: ‘Triangle of Sadness’
By: Amanda Guarragi “Find out who you are and do it on purpose.” – Dolly Parton When we think about Dolly Parton, we think of a beautiful, intelligent, witty blonde bombshell with an angelic singing voice. She is a woman who inspires others to be themselves and not care about what others think. Listening to […]
‘Seriously Red’ Review
The Academy Award nominations were announced on January 24. We have until March 12 to consider these films, including the 10 films nominated for Best Picture. Among this year’s nominees were some of my favorites of the year. Below is my personal ranking of all 10 Best Picture Nominees in ascending order. For those enjoying […]
Binge Watch: Best Picture Nominees
Paul Thomas Anderson once again returns to the San Fernando Valley in the 1970s — however, unlike his previous film set there, Boogie Nights (1997), his latest effort, Licorice Pizza, is a gentler and hazier movie that rests its heart on its sleeve in numerous ways. The year is 1973, and fifteen-year-old […]
Licorice Pizza (2021)
I remember the first time I saw “West Side Story.” I watched the 1961 film during class at my Catholic elementary school decades later — on a square TV on a rolling cart — and it was transformative. I immediately loved the music, choreography, dancing, characters, and storytelling. I watch that version from time to […]
Musical Masterpiece: Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story”
The Washington D.C. Area Film Critics have announced their nominees for the best of 2021! The winners will be announced tomorrow so that means you have exactly one day to see all the nominees. GET TO IT! Best Film Belfast The Green Knight The Power of the Dog tick, tick…BOOM! West Side Story Best Director […]
Here Are the 2021 Nominations of the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics!
The National Board of Review just announced their picks for the best of 2021 and, while many thought they might go with West Side Story or The Power of the Dog, the NBR instead announced that their pick for Best Picture was Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza! In fact, Power of the Dog went curiously […]
The National Board of Review Names Licorice Pizza The Best of 2021
Dobromir Dymecki, Agnieszka Zulewska Ruben Östlund `s “Force Majeure” was one of the first films that showed us the true image of our selfishness. Nothing comes before our needs. What we want, what we should do or what should be done to us is the highest priority for us. Therefore, […]
Film Review: “Silent Land” (2021)
Papiro & Mint is back to talk about one of the most exciting moments of the year: film festival season! This will be the first time I’ll be attending the São Paulo International Film Festival in person since 2019 due to the Coronavirus pandemic, while I’ll also be watching many titles online since the festival […]
São Paulo International Film Festival | 2021
Leading up to the release of his new movie, writer-director Kenneth Branagh has said that it took him nearly fifty years to figure out how to properly tell the story of his childhood in 1960s Northern Ireland. In the modestly scaled, monochromatic Belfast, we see such turbulent childhood play out, but it makes one wonder […]
Belfast – Movie Review
The world of horse racing is explored in Clint Bentley‘s “Jockey” (2021). Jackson (Clifton Collins Jr.) is an aging jockey, eager to experience one last glorious lap before his ailing body finally gives in to […]
Sundance Review: “Jockey”
Reporting from the Denver Film Festival. The animation is stunning. Fluid lines connect all different styles and textures: pencil drawings, cutouts, and computer-generated images. Some of them are on black backgrounds; some of them overlap archival footage of Montreal—the second-largest French-speaking city in the universe—and the thousands of islands that make up the archipelago. Over […]
ARCHIPELAGO (ARCHIPEL)
Reporting from the Denver Film Festival. It opens with sex: Explicit, hardcore sex in the bedroom. The woman before the camera is Emilia (Katia Pascariu), a teacher at a local private school. The man holding the camera is Eugene (Stefan Steel), Emilia’s husband. Looking to spice up a regular evening of rumpy-pumpy, they pull out […]
BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN
