Cinema’s nominal purveyor of ruralism, most successfully of the Southern sort, Jeff Nichols is the de facto director to handle a story such as the…
Werner Herzog’s latest has self-referential origins: He met his “co-director,” volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer, while making Encounters at the End of the World, and included…
Ti West has repeatedly demonstrated himself capable of a certain kind of virtuosic genre craft, enough at least for it to seem like he could one…
After last year’s tepidly-received Journey to the Shore proved a curious misfire, Kiyoshi Kurosawa chose to return to the familiar motifs of his most…
An angry juxtaposition structures Gianfranco Rosi’s migrant crisis documentary Fire at Sea. Rather than focus solely on the struggles of refugees as they cross…
The 35th Vancouver International Film Festival is past its halfway point and continues to deliver a refreshingly varied cinematic slate. This second dispatch covers…
Keith Maitland’s Tower continues this year’s streak of excellent documentaries. The film concerns the deadly mass shooting that occurred on August 1, 1966 from the…
Focusing on the daughter of well-known Edo-period Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, the episodic, contemplative anime biopic Miss Hokusai gingerly examines young O-ei’s growth as an artist…
Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho has narrowed his scope with Aquarius, after the hustle and bustle of his last feature, Neighboring Sounds. Filho gives his latest…
Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey, was always going to be a thing of beauty. In fact, the only visual surprise is just how seamlessly…
A director of compassionate, deeply human portraiture, typically of decent people navigating the currents of their respective worlds, director Kelly Reichardt manages to ratchet up…
With Maliglitut, which literally translates to “the followers,” director Zacharius Kunuk embarks on an approximate remake of John Ford’s The Searchers, relocating the action…
Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman and Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation navigate similar thematic territory—that of patriarchs finding their ethical boundaries pushed when their self-perceived altruistic defense of family becomes…
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Once the political firebrand of the far left, Oliver Stone has lost the intensity that pushed his earlier…
Kate Plays Christine offers an intriguing setup at the expense of an ultimately unjustified exploitation. Director Robert Greene invites actress Kate Lyn Sheil to…
Sion Sono’s Love Exposure is an epic, four-hour romantic comedy about terrible fathers, upskirt photography, Catholicism, and the meaning of love. Where Sono’s Bicycle Sighs could be…
Werner Herzog’s latest documentary demonstrates the master’s ability to both simulate an evenhanded exploration of multiple view points and assert his own, unwavering allegiances…
When her son is killed in Nagasaki by the atomic bomb that ended World War II, Nobuko (Sayuri Yoshinaga), an elderly midwife faces life…