In Review Online - Film and Music Criticism

TIFF 2020 — Dispatch 1: Nomadland, One Night in Miami, American Utopia

September 14, 2020

Nomadland Having just taken the top prize at this year’s Venice Film Festival, Nomadland begins its journey towards Oscar gold. That’s admittedly a flip assessment of a film that takes to the fringes of American life: Adapted from Jessica Bruder’s non-fiction work of the same name, the film surveys a demographic of older American workers who hit the road after their lives were decimated by the 2008 recession, though it focuses mainly on Fern, a tenacious, sixty-something widow and lifelong…

Credit: Glen Wilson/Netflix
by Daniel Gorman Film Streaming Scene
The Devil All the Time | Antonio Campos
The Devil All the Time abandons any meaningful Southern Gothic tradition or thematic complexity in favor of base misery. Antonio Campos’ The Devil All the Time is nearly impossible to digest; it’s a film so tonally…
September 21, 2020
Credit: TIFF
by InRO Staff Festival Coverage Film
TIFF 2020 — Dispatch 4: Another Round, The Best Is Yet to Come, Quo Vadis, Aida?
The Best Is Yet to Come Think Spotlight but shot by Yu Lik-wai, Jia Zhang-ke’s favorite DP. Sounds pretty neat, right? And for a while, The Best Is Yet to Come is an involving,…
September 21, 2020
Credit: TIFF
by InRO Staff Festival Coverage Film
TIFF 2020 — Dispatch 3: The Disciple, Violation, Good Joe Bell
The Disciple Sharad Nerulkar — the titular disciple in Chaitanya Tamhane’s sophomore feature — is, by most accounts, unexceptional. He’s devoted his life to archiving, preserving, and, most importantly to him, practicing and performing…
September 19, 2020
Credit: TIFF
by Daniel Gorman Film Horizon Line
About Endlessness | Roy Andersson
About Endlessness is a gentler than usual work from Roy Andersson, one that reflects humanity’s ability to create both great beauty and profound suffering. Those complaining that Wes Anderson’s movies all look the same have…
September 18, 2020
Credit: Lionsgate
Blockbuster Beat by Matt Lynch Film
Antebellum | Gerard Bush & Christopher Renz
Antebellum is a vapid, one-gimmick flick that plays like a politically impotent episode of Black Mirror. There’s still plenty of debate over cinematic depictions of slavery specifically and the abuse of Black bodies in general. Movies…
September 18, 2020
Credit: Netflix
by Steven Warner Film Streaming Scene
The Paramedic | Carles Torras
The Paramedic is the gleeful, glorious pulp-trash the world needs right now. New Spanish-language thriller The Paramedic wastes no time in establishing its title character, Angel (Mario Casas), as an unrepentant scumbag. Within the course of…
September 18, 2020
Credit: TIFF
by InRO Staff Festival Coverage Film
TIFF 2020 — Dispatch 2: Pieces of a Woman, Summer of 85, New Order
Pieces of a Woman Director Kornél Mundruczó knows how to open a film (see the otherwise underwhelming White God, for example), and with Pieces of a Woman he sets out to obliterate his previous…
September 17, 2020
Credit: NYAFF
by InRO Staff Festival Coverage Film
NYAFF 2020 — Dispatch 4: Soul, The Girl and the Gun, Miyamoto
Soul Emir Ezwan’s debut feature, Soul, is part of an emerging Malaysian cinema heavily composed of genre fare. Made for roughly $80,000 USD, the horror film is clearly a labor of love and, on…
September 17, 2020
Credit: Array
by Luke Gorham Film Streaming Scene
Residue | Merawi Gerima
Residue is a singular, important achievement, a work of shattering beauty and necessary discourse. Director Merawi Gerima was born into an impressive cinematic lineage. His father is Haile Gerima, a foundational member of the L.A.…
September 16, 2020
Credit: Shudder
by Steven Warner Film Streaming Scene
Spiral | Kurtis David Harder
Spiral is content lean into cheap scare tactics at the expense of the more novel, potent direction is could have taken. New horror thriller Spiral clearly wants to be the LGBTQ-facing version of Get…
September 16, 2020