Writer-director Laurel Parmet’s The Starling Girl opens with 17-year-old Jem Starling (Eliza Scanlen) dancing with her church’s worship troupe. It’s clear that dancing brings…
A scattershot commentary on the film industry from writer-director-star Charlie Day (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), the kindest thing one can say about Fool’s…
Inescapable during the ‘90s and ‘00s yet rendered near instantly obsolete by the iPhone and its assorted imitators, the BlackBerry smartphone feels less like…
Actress-turned-director Manuela Martelli’s debut feature, Chile ’76, is a thriller built upon the expectations of upper-class marital melodrama. Carmen (a subtle but strong Aline…
In discussing what constitutes homophobia, queer theorist Eve Sedgwick posits that “the number of persons or institutions by whom the existence of gay people…
Shekhar Kapur’s What’s Love Got to Do With It? comes courtesy of Studio Canal and Working Title, two production companies who have created a…
Ashley McKenzie’s debut feature, Werewolf, already suggested a talent to watch in its refracted take on the addiction/relationship drama. While its dramatic sense felt…
Joachim Lafosse’s The Restless begins with a stranding at sea. Damien (Damien Bonnard), a rising art star at the beginning of a manic episode,…
Adapted from Paolo Cognetti’s award-winning novel of the same name, The Eight Mountains opens with a young man’s voiceover accompanying a series of natural…
Jalmari Helander’s Sisu is a lean piece of filmmaking with a simple pitch: a one-man army violently dispatches a handful of Nazis at the…
As its title would have it, Plan 75 has a broad purview over the implementation and implications of its alternate, not-too-distant future. In this…
After Jerry Seinfeld and his “What’s the deal?” color commentary on the silliness of the quotidian struck gold in Seinfeld, comedians started to habitually…
A beguiling amalgam of classic opera sensibility, modern dance performance, and Badlands-esque, lovers-on-the-run romantic tragedy, Benjamin Millepied’s Carmen is a deeply idiosyncratic and electrifying…
In July 2020, The New York Times published an article by composer and music composition professor Marcos Balter that criticized the notion of calling…
Art is subjective, as is the concept of firsts. Hilma af Klint can be classed as the first abstract painter, years before the more…
Little Richard, born Richard Wayne Penniman, is a complicated figure in rock ‘n’ roll history not just because of the way his legacy as…
Everybody knows a low-stakes liar. Whether it’s Instagram exaggerations or anecdotes reconfigured to place themselves as the hero, this kind of one-upmanship is practically…
The first thing one is likely to notice about Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is how ugly its characters look. Their eyes are empty of…