Directed by Ninja Thyberg, Pleasure casts a critical eye on the porn industry, which has a cycle of abuse that particularly affects women. Rooted in realism it watches very much like a fictionalized version of a documentary.
Sundance: Pleasure
Witches: Stalked by the Shadow of Madness
A serious yet poignant documentary that explores the parallels between the historical portrayal of witches & mental illness during & after pregnancy.
Aftersun
My sister, years back, discovered some old movies of us on holiday. I distinctly remember me and my dad, walking over a wooden bridge and me bouncing up and down on it “Look how pissed off you made him!” laughed my sister, as there in the fuzzy world of the past, my dad looked back […]
Film Review: Monster
Told from multiple perspectives, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster is a multi-faceted drama about a lack of understanding in our world.
Film Review: Emilia Pérez
A Mexican cartel leader undergoes gender-affirming surgery in Jacques Audiard’s really bad musical Emilia Pérez.
Sid and Nancy (1986)
Sid Vicious came out of the British working-class. He was rude, uneducated, violent, and profane. Unlike Keith Moon, who was one of the greatest drummers who ever lived, he wasn’t even a particularly good musician. Nancy Spungen came out of the American middle-class. She was an abrasive, emotionally needy substance abuser who wasn’t even particularly […]
In the Realm of the Senses (Ai no Corrida) (1976)
Nagisa Oshima’s controversial erotic art film, “In the Realm of the Senses,” as it is known in the United States, has two other titles. L’Empire des Sens (Empire of Senses) in France, and an original Japanese title, Ai no Corrida (Bullfight of Love). For once, I believe that the Americans got it right with their […]
Film Review: Bird
A coming-of-age drama set in Kent, England, Bird tells the story of a rebellious twelve-year-old girl with an eye for the innocent beauty around her. Though unfamiliar with the works of writer/director Andrea Arnold, I was surprised to find a quiet calmness in her depiction of the female preteen experience. She manages to capture an […]
In the Mood for Love
I feel as if In the Mood for Love is just about impossible to write about. A lot of films benefit from a lot of analysis, making what you see on screen that much more clear and powerful, or perhaps even that much more expansive and mysterious in its ideas. I watched In the Mood […]
Paris, Texas
“But what that Comanche believes, ain’t got no eyes, he can’t enter the spirit-land. Has to wander forever between the winds.” -Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) in The Searchers Paris, Texas is a difficult film, and though I have come to love it by thinking it over the past couple days, I do not think it’s […]
Burn After Reading
Muhteşem kadro seçimiyle ‘burn after reading’ filmi; alkolik olduğu öne sürülerek CIA’deki işinden kovulan emekli ajan Ozzie Cox’ın, intikam almak için gizli bilgileri bir cd’ye kaydetmesiyle başlıyor. Cox ile boşanmak isteyen eşi Katie ise cd’yi gizlice alır ve gittiği spor salonunda unutur. Spor salonunun (ve benim gözümde filmin süper ikilisi) iki çalışanı Chad ve Linda […]
‘Lamb’ Review: Valdimar Jóhannsson’s Stunning Debut Is A Brutal, Haunting Icelandic Folklore
It’s impossible to talk about “Lamb,” the Icelandic creature thriller, without revealing its central theme. Co-written by first-time-writer/director Valdimar Jóhannsson, who used to work as a special effects crew for Hollywood blockbusters like “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” and “Prometheus,” and Icelandic poet Sjón, “Lamb” might be the oddest film you will ever see […]
‘Lamb’ Review: Valdimar Jóhannsson’s Stunning Debut Is A Brutal, Haunting Icelandic Folklore
REVIEW: “The Substance” (2024)
The buzz has been off the charts for “The Substance” following its May world premiere at the 77th Cannes Film Festival where it won the award for Best Screenplay. Since then it has only gained momentum, recently showing at the Toronto Independent Film Festival where it took home one of the People’s Choice awards. Now […]
REVIEW: “The Substance” (2024)
‘Occupied City’ Review: Steve McQueen’s Doc Is a Trial to Sit Through
Adapting a chronicle of Amsterdam Holocaust victims’ stories, McQueen does a one-note meditation on past and present.
The Delinquents (2023) Movie Review
Rodrigo Moreno’s The Delinquents is not a heist film, but it does begin with an elaborate bank robbery. It is not exactly a thriller, either, though it borrows from plenty of the tropes you’d find in an exciting thriller film with a heist as its centerpiece. Elaborate planning, blackmail, prison politics, uneasy partnerships, paranoia of…
The Red Sea Makes Me Wanna Cry: A Short Film
The Red Sea Makes Me Wanna Cry is set between Berlin and a small port town overlooking the Red Sea, with a rather complicated history
Burn After Reading – Precious Bodily Fluids
One feels that thinking on a film by the Coen brothers, especially a comedy, is a fruitless exercise. Those guys design their work in such a way that it’s not merely immune to navel-gazing, it actually mocks the navel-gazers. And bless their hearts for it. As David Bazan has sung: You’re so creative With your…
Delicatessen Film Review: Unforeseen Events for Louison
What’s an out of work clown to do? Louison (played by Dominique Pinon) didn’t lose his job due to a lack of charm, he has that in abundance. Unfortunately his life took an unexpected turn with the death of his performing partner. The truth to be told, his partner didn’t simply die, he was…
Bergman Island: Niche Indie Film for Art House Enthusiasts
Right from the first scene in Bergman Island, it is apparent that this is a movie made with a very particular audience in mind. You can tell that it will never crossover into pop culture or even into the conversations of casual movie fans, like a lot of indies playing in the festival circuit, do.…
Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul – Uniting Modernity and Tradition in Turkish Music
MUHAMMED NOUSHAD reviews Fatih Akin’s documentary Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul. Turkish music is irresistibly intoxicating. The more you listen to it, the more it binds you inside. Once you begin to indulge in its soothing pleasure, it engages you to endless entrapment. Here, modernity cohabits with tradition as in the historic city…