“READ ME”: a visage lit in orange glow, hands, bodies, hands caressing bodies, the twinkling lights of a Christmas tree, the two words blinking mutely from a…
Rarely does the weight of a classic so gracefully crimp under the weightlessness of an earnest successor, less keen on displacing the gravitas of the…
Of the so-called “three amigos” — comprising Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, and Alejandro González Iñárritu — whose films have in recent years penetrated the…
It takes a kind of charming naïveté these days to purport to represent the vagaries of sexuality onscreen without so much as a sideways glance…
Any nerve-shredding tendencies present in Nocebo are punctured by its clunky exposition, predictable ending, and insistence on trite messaging. There are two kinds of clinical…
Descendant is a piercing work of ethnography that takes on America’s original sin with intelligence and nuance. Reclaiming history has, historically, been an arduous process, and…
Ana Lily Amirpour’s foray into prestige television isn’t entirely unexpected, given both her affinity with idiosyncratic, highly stylized horror cinema and a cultural demand for…
The Lobby’s punishing perspective and comical presentation make for a wryly self-deprecating inquiry into death and all things philosophical. “There is no here here” —…
Rimini possesses a frigid sociological potency whose disparate elements capture a stratified generation’s cultural and libidinal imaginary. The curtain doesn’t quite fall in wintry Rimini,…
Triangle of Sadness vacillates between slight but sly commentary and outright gaudiness, but an enigmatic, delightfully bathetic ending ushers Östlund’s film out on a high note.…
Terrifier 2 is a breath of fresh horror air, hilarity, melodrama, brutality, and unhinged schtick rolled into one grisly package, all of it supported by a…
The Silent Twins flattens any psychological depth found in its characters and suffers from a directorial style mismatched to the content at hand. The story…
Ozon’s frivolous Fassbinder homage doesn’t quite engrave much that is substantive or memorable. Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s tragically short and tormented life has been the subject…
“Imagination is a force that can actually manifest a reality. Don’t put limitations on yourself. Others will do that for you.” — James Cameron When…
Squeal is an occasionally striking study of the fairy tales men tell themselves, but it too often feels floundering and under-cooked to be regarded as…
At its core, the intellectual thesis of Julia Murat’s intelligent if inconclusive film belies a more emotional investment. As its title might imply, Rule 34…
Fifty years ago this month, the late Wes Craven premiered The Last House on the Left, a film notorious even in an era of exploitation…
An ill-conceived inertia plagues Memory Box, and its magical-sounding title only barely conceals the roteness of its center. In Sophy Romvari’s Still Processing, an intensely personal…
Without the director’s name attached to the credits, and without Alain Chabat’s happily nonchalant presence gracing the screen, one might not recognize Incredible But True…
Though frequently overt in its commentary, Medusa still enthralls thanks to its formally and functionally immersive world-building. Set in an alternate Brazil where evangelical conservatism has all…