Rankin’s sophomore feature feels like Kaurismaki meets Kiarostami as his surreal, and at times perplexing tale brings us through a hybrid Canadian-Iranian space marked by quaint shophouses and bustling highways.
Continue reading “Universal Language (2024)”
A brilliant idea to set a ‘warring gangs’ action film in the iconic if long-demolished Kowloon Walled City, but this comic book adaptation feels numbingly empty with its stylistic excesses a tonal mismatch with the more sobering space of marginality and exploitation.
Continue reading “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (2024)”
Natural prehistory comes to life in a series of special effects ‘attractions’ as Zeman’s charming adventure sees four boys enter a cave that transports them back to millions of years ago.
Continue reading “Journey to the Beginning of Time (1955)”
1969 is summoned in a pat and predictable yet sincere, excellently acted, frequently moving 1988 drama about two families caught up in and forever changed by events in that wild final year of an extraordinary decade. Ernest Thompson had scored a big win some years earlier writing On Golden Pond; this time out he directed […]
Continue reading “1969”
THE HAPPY ENDING, one of those misery-doesn’t-really love-company dramas that usually revolve around married women approaching or arrived at middle age. Written, produced & directed by Richard Brooks in 1969, it gave his wife, actress Jean Simmons, 40, a strong finish to the decade. After the 1960 glories of Elmer Gantry (Brooks directing) and Spartacus, apart […]
Continue reading “The Happy Ending”
Halina Reijn challenges simplistic morality and puritanical standards about human interaction through this delightfully risqué erotic drama.
Continue reading “Babygirl”
Brady Corbet delivers a monumental epic unlike anything you’ll see this year
Continue reading “The Brutalist”
Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez’s 1967 magnum opus, “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” has long been considered one of the greatest works of modern literature. However, during Márquez’s life, he refused to sell the rights to the novel because he felt a film adaptation would not come close to scratching the surface of this […]
Continue reading “One Hundred Years of Solitude”
The Heretic, directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, dives deeply into religious philosophy and psychological terror, starring Hugh Grant in an unsettling departure from his typical rom-com roles. Set primarily in a claustrophobic, dimly lit house, The Heretic weaves tension through intellectual debate and moments of […]
Continue reading “”
It’s been two years since her husband passed away and Thelma Post (June Squibb) is adjusting to her new reality. She’s 93 years old and fiercely independent. While Thelma spends most of her days home alone ,she keeps in frequent contact with her grandson Daniel (Fred Hechinger) and her daughter Gail (Parker Posey). One day […]
Continue reading “”
Matthieu (Pierre Deladonchamps) just received the call that his father died. The father he never met. The father he didn’t even really knew existed. The father he couldn’t meet in life but now must get to know in death. His mother always told him that Matthieu was the result of a one-night stand. But the […]
Continue reading “A Kid (Le fils de Jean)”
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.
Continue reading “Sundance: Pleasure”
When Americans leave home in search of meaning somewhere on the European continent, it’s usually a recipe for disaster (at least in the world of horror cinema). Young, brash, naive Americans have to face ancient beasts (The Ritual), human traffickers (Hostel), and even covens of witches (Suspiria). Watching enough horror films might make you think […]
Continue reading “Spring (2014), Romance Meets Body Horror in Italy”
He was the greatest car maker of all time and a visionary like no other. Except, there have been others and we’ve seen their movies too. Ferrari did it most recently, Ford v. Ferrari did it better. It’s hard to make the same story feel fresh and Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend falls into […]
Continue reading “”
Biographical documentary brings sex researcher Shere Hite, who revolutionized how we view women’s sexuality, back into the spotlight.
Continue reading “Sundance: The Disappearance of Shere Hite”
When you think of the 1970s, you probably think of free love, cults, psychedelic drugs, and maybe Jimmy Carter. Giulio Paradisi’s film, The Visitor (1979) has most of these things, but more than anything else, it embodies that whacky, hallucinatory vibe that only 70s films can capture. It seems to me that people back then […]
Continue reading “The Visitor (1979), A Hidden Gem of Insane 70s Sci-Fi”
The pacing retreats to more of a family drama than a rocket of espionage intrigue but Bridges and Lithgow make a helluva duo – even if they are getting too old for this shit.
Continue reading “”
Co-directed by her daughter, this new doc on Donna Summer gives us a peak at the real woman behind the iconic image.
Continue reading “Donna Summer”
As a film critic, there’s nothing more satisfying than discovering a director with a truly distinctive and entertaining style. With so many films I come across, I feel as though I’m watching something I’ve seen before, simply pushed through a grinder to give it a unique texture. It may look a little different, but it’s […]
Continue reading “Reflect (2023), A Mind-Bending Metaphysical Journey Into the Unknown”
An engrossing documentary about the new age of financial and digital disruption. Ondi Timoner takes a complicated subject and makes it accessible and entertaining.
Continue reading “SXSW: The New Americans: Gaming a Revolution”
