Cryptozoo is both technically and thematically potent, but it’s the film’s third act which cements it as an exceptional and surprising animated work. In Cryptozoo,…
There’s a perverse gothic sex comedy located somewhere in Jakob’s Wife, but it’s buried under reams of flat, deadening horror comedy. The work that made Barbara Crampton…
If ever evidence was needed of art criticism’s role as a passing functionary in the workings of cultural amusement and consumption, one need look no…
Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It sounds like the name of a failed American sitcom from the ‘50s, and true to that shape, this comedy/horror hybrid…
Unlike the booming fame and splendor of Tokyo’s Shinjuku and Shibuya districts, sister neighborhood Shimokitazawa is most well-known among the young locals for its trendy…
Ohku Akiko’s Hold Me Back is, like her 2017 film Tremble All You Want, a portrait of a lonely young woman whose inner life manifests…
Limbo Photography is the first sign that Soi Cheang’s Limbo is different from the director’s past work. Though his return to Hong Kong was bound…
Faith’s attempt at a post-mortem celebration of Pop Smoke’s artistry is undermined by the record’s structural incoherence and arbitrary collabs. When was the first time…
Sob Rock finds John Mayer effecting something between self-effacement and contrition, but it’s all couched in just more of the same soft-boy bravado. John Mayer may…
Laura Mvula’s latest proves that nostalgic throwback records can still feel fresh, even if its artificial construction keeps things mostly, if pleasurably, surface-level. Listening to…
Ain’t That the Truth continues Drakeo’s winning streak, his loosest, most aesthetically confident work yet. The concept of “The Truth” links Drakeo the Ruler’s recent…
If Spiral doesn’t quite strike the same welcome murkiness as Psychic, it still suggests future destinations worth following Darkside to. Darkside, the musical duo composed of electronic producer…
Pop Smoke When was the first time you heard Canarsie rapper Pop Smoke’s hulking, husky battle cry of a voice? It was probably over the…
Demonic suggests a few novel, fascinating twists to the horror template, and then runs away from them as fast as it can. In the six years…
Ma Belle, My Beauty is a lovingly realized and mature look at polyamory, but it fails to probe its emotional core sufficiently. Polyamory is a subject…
Last August, fresh from the premiere of time-bending action thriller Tenet, Tom Cruise giddily proclaimed: “Big movie. Big screen. Loved it.” Nolan’s movie may have…
A documentary whose goofy, DIY sensibility matches its endearingly amateur subject matter, Lucy Harvey and Danielle Kummer’s Alien On Stage is the quintessential homegrown hero.…
Emblematic of kitchen-sink realism, Jesse Dvorak’s feature debut is a paradigmatic unfurling of anticipated beats and narrativity. Baby, Don’t Cry, written by and starring Zita…
Back to the Wharf Li Xiaofeng’s Back to the Wharf begins with a tragic accident that escalates, shockingly, to murder. After high school student Song…
In the Same Breath boasts plenty of charged imagery and emotion, but its pat dialectics and dangling theses undermine its intellectual power. For a while,…
The Last Matinee is a modern Giallo effort that fails to reimagine, evolve, or even properly understand the form. The use of movie theaters as a…