Hal Hartley occupies a curious position in the American film scene. While he might reasonably be called an icon of the independent film scene and…
Nine Days angles toward profundity, but is a largely maudlin, intellectually bankrupt genre-exercise of self-congratulation. In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, prisoners sit facing a wall…
Never Gonna Snow Again harnesses is an oddball, observational film that manages to comment on much without veering into obviousness. Premiering at the 2020 Venice Film…
Snake Eyes is all boring backstory and cliched tropes, and not remotely as weird as the material demands. Apparently, it’s absurdly hard to make a…
Kandisha doesn’t quite rise to the directors’ past heights, but remains both riveting and probing in its own right. With horror, thriller, and the many…
Stuntman is a more modest effort than similar docu-efforts, but greatly benefits from Braun’s sincerity and likability. On September 8, 1974, with a ton of…
OK, so things don’t really vanish anymore: even the most limited film release will (most likely, eventually) find its way onto some streaming service or…
Old suffers a bit from Shyamalan’s weaknesses as a writer, but by its end, ranks as one of the director’s weirdest and most poignant works yet.…
Jolt is an ironically-titled dud, its rote thriller stylings utterly unervating. Tanya Wexler’s Jolt is like a fake movie playing on the television in a better,…
The Last Letter from Your Lover is an utter misfire, devoid of the chemistry and coherent performances necessary to sell its ostensible romance. Like so many…
There’s no denying that Val indulges in a bit of hagiography, but it remains a frequently engaging study of its enigmatic subject. Actor Val Kilmer has…
Drive My Car Ryusuke Hamaguchi has fast become one of the more dependable filmmaker’s regularly working the international festival circuit, ever since he broke big…
Settlers offers neither genre thrills nor any real interrogation of the material’s potentially rich subtext. Part sci-fi thriller, part western, part survivalist drama, Wyatt Rockefeller’s Settlers…
Brian De Palma is the great voyeur, the plump-bellied pervert, of American cinema. His films have a singularly sleazy feel, gloriously gaudy and admirable in…
Ailey ably captures and reflects its eponymous subject’s abiding vision: art’s capacity as a universal language. On December 4, 1988, dancer-choreographer Alvin Ailey received the…
Deception A long pursued passion project, Arnaud Desplechin’s latest picture adapts Philip Roth’s 1990 slippery, erotic novel, Deception, into cinematic form for the first time.…
Tyler, the Creator Let’s first address what Call Me If You Get Lost isn’t. It isn’t a mixtape — though the instant shouting from DJ…
Air Conditioner is a beautiful, thoughtful work of easygoing charm and surprising intellect. As far as cinematic representations of heat go, Ernest Dickerson’s work on Do…
Mandibles is a profoundly audacious film, moronic and masterful in equal measure. Perhaps the most unbefitting title to arrive in the middle of a global pandemic,…
Miller is a talent to watch, but Joe Bell is profoundly tone-deaf, little more than queer cinema for straight people. Joe Bell is the kind of…