Ry Ry World is the best kind of sophomore album, one that improves and expands on Mariah the Scientist’s debut while retaining its singularity. Mariah…
Stand for Myself reflects Yola’s next phase of healing after her debut, a sophomore effort that is equally confident and vulnerable. Stand for Myself is…
The House is Burning finds Rashad asserting personhood over persona, to mostly career-stabilizing effect. The frequency and speed with which musicians are now expected to release…
G Herbo On his latest album 25, G Herbo is attempting to pivot into something greater than his current self — that is, a successful…
Wildland suffers for its underdeveloped characters and themes, but its sense of intimacy stands out in a genre often tilted only toward style. Watching Wildland, the…
A former student of Michael Haneke’s, now operating under the Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion banner, Peter Brunner seems primed (and positioned) to be Austria’s next internationally…
For many depressing reasons, it’s not surprising to see a film like The River in competition at Locarno in 2021: it’s helmed by an artist…
Training for riots in blue and red gear, the police force, as depicted in Il Legionario, are made to look like Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em…
The Sacred Spirit, Chema García Ibarra’s feature-length debut, asks a weighty and fitting question for these unstable times: Is there an unknown force in the…
Snuck into Locarno’s Histoire(s) du cinéma section (generally reserved for restorations and works explicitly about film history), husband/wife directing duo Riccardo Spinotti and Valentina de…
Luzifer A former student of Michael Haneke’s, now operating under the Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion banner, Peter Brunner seems primed (and positioned) to be Austria’s next…
Habit sounds like fun, should be fun, wants to be fun; it’s more like Hell. Bella Thorne plays a Los Angeles party girl who masquerades as…
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…