“Here is my music. It is all I have to tell you how I feel. Know that your love keeps my love strong.” This message…
Spiral fundamentally misunderstands the appeal of the Saw franchise, deviating from the series formula to remarkably diminished results. Spiral: From the Book of Saw is but the latest…
There is No Evil is frequently, starkly poignant, but it’s successes are somewhat mitigated by a lack of culminating cohesion. Mohammad Rasoulof wasn’t present at last…
With The Killing of Two Lovers, Robert Machoian constructs a difficult balance between simple-yet-impressive visual techniques and more frenzied audio compositions to drive an underwhelming narrative.…
Young Stoner Life Records What’s changed for YSL (Young Stoner Life) Records since their last compilation album, Slime Language, was released in late 2018? Well,…
Profile’s subject matter is more than a little silly, but its thrilling Screenlife tinkering speaks to the form’s malleability and still-untapped potential. 2021 really might…
The Columnist successfully balances a line between the satirical and sobering, and delivers some nice genre play in the process. Ivo Van Aart’s darkly comic horror…
The Djinn offers plenty of playful throwback chills, but boasts eye-roll messaging and doesn’t quite know who its audience is. Anyone expecting the gore and camp…
The Crime of the Century frustrates by leaving too much of its incisive subject matter dangling, but is still one of the most clear-eyed studies…
Oxygen’s high concept unfortunately hampers Aja’s ability to impress much on either a visual or narrative level. Seriously erratic genre auteur Alexandre Aja is back.…
The Perfect Candidate keeps the stakes low and can be cloying at times, but its story is necessary. Haifaa Al-Mansour, whose 2012 feature debut Wadjda…
Heaven Reaches Down to Earth Tebogo Malebogo’s Heaven Reaches Down to Earth begins with red embers dancing. Their subtle flickers, alongside the pulsing buzz of…
The French New Wave has long been the go-to introductory movement for burgeoning cinephiles. Unlike other, more loosely-defined national “waves,” it has reasonably delineated boundaries,…
The Boy from Medellín’s early commitment to emotional and psychological honesty is ultimately subsumed by the doc’s refusal to engage on any political level. With…
Dark Red Forest Spiritual faith, by virtue of its abstract and elusive qualities, rarely translates well to the visual medium, if indeed it can be…
Although The Flowers of St. Francis sits comfortably within one Roberto Rossellini’s most lauded creative stretches , it’s a work that still doesn’t exactly have…
Wrath of Man is a hybrid heist/revenge film that is pure fluff and littered with Ritchie idiosyncrasies, but also truly technically impressive. Posited: Guy Ritchie…
Here Today is a baffling, schmaltzy oddball of a film that finds Billy Crystal profoundly out of touch. There’s been something of a recent resurgence when…
The Paper Tigers doesn’t pull it all together dramatically or narratively, but its genre reverence is a steadying force. Reverence looms large in Quoc Bao Tran’s…
Cliff Walkers is a visually slick and violent spy flick that avoids propaganda and imbues its proceedings with considerable emotional and existential weight. Don’t let a…