Kicking the Canon has underwent a bit of makeover and invited some friends to the party. With a decade having elapsed since the aughts, the KtC editorial team spent 2020, in fits and starts, evaluating and finalizing the 2000s canon, and we are happy to now launch both the film and music canon for that decade. Given the glut of releases in any given year, relative to decades past, and the increased difficulty in winnowing down selections, we decided to use…
There are certain iconic questions in cinema history that have endured long after the credits roll. Who shot first, Han or Greedo? Did the spinning top ever fall at the end of Inception? In…
Stray is a restrained, poignant study of abandoned souls, dog and human alike. Stray, the title of Elizabeth Lo’s mesmerizingly observational documentary, nominally refers to the dogs roaming the streets of Istanbul, dogs which the…
- by InRO Staff Festival Coverage Film
Berlin Film Festival 2021 — Dispatch 5: Social Hygiene, The Luminous View, For Lucio
Social Hygiene Retreating from the weight of actions into the weightlessness of words, Denis Côté’s latest finds a rambunctious solace in the oratorial. Serving possibly as a stylistic antithesis to 2019’s dialogue-free Wilcox (centered…
Chaos Walking welcomingly deviates from the YA template and surprises with its visual design, but it crumbles under the weight of its unexplored ideas. From its conception to this, its theatrical bow at last, Chaos…
Coming 2 America is a lifeless detour without any of the humor or incisive critique of the original. John Landis’ 1988 Eddie Murphy vehicle Coming to America is, frankly, justly beloved. Although it’s full of…
- by InRO Staff Festival Coverage Film
Berlin Film Festival 2021 — Dispatch 4: Introduction, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, The Scary of Sixty-First
Introduction It’s somewhat reductive to observe that Hong Sang-soo, so often noted for his diptych structures, seems to have moved into a new triptych phase with his two latest films: The Woman Who Ran…
Author/chef/attorney/entrepreneur Eddie Huang adds a few more bullets to his CV as writer and director of coming-of-age drama Boogie, the tale of a Chinese-American high school basketball prodigy torn between the unrealistic expectations of…
Sponge on the Run could have been a nostalgic charmer, but is instead little more than a bit of cheap brand marketing. After 22 years, Spongebob Squarepants is only now receiving a spin-off in Kamp…
- by InRO Staff Festival Coverage Film
Berlin Film Festival 2021 — Dispatch 3: Nous, North by Current, I’m Your Man
Nous Cutting across Paris from the north to the south, the RER B is a commuter rail that shuttles passengers to and from the city center, moving between the northern Mitry-Mory commune and the…
The Orphanage can be flat and predictable for stretches, but it also tilts its formalism toward a playful character enough to suggest Sadat is worth continuing to watch. The Orphanage is the second feature by…