Delmer Daves has his deserved champions, but even so, he’s an interesting sell; not a hard one, per se, but one that’s mildly inundated with…
Stillwater tiptoes around complex, potentially rich discourse without ever committing to any real ideological principle. Who is Tom McCarthy, really? Once a semi-successful TV actor, he’s…
Ride the Eagle is a slight, breezy affair that succeeds on the strength of its comedic charm and slick pacing. If you had another chance with…
Enemies of the State fails to probe deeply, content with its story’s sensational surface at the expense of more meaningful study. Produced by genius documentarian and…
Haruhara San’s Recorder The winner of FIDMarseille International Competition, as well as the recipient of its Best Actress award in that category, Haruhara San’s Recorder…
Outside Noise Ted Fendt’s body of work is at least in part characterized by its very purposeful progression. His films are all dryly comedic character…
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…