The overwrought, overexplained, overedited maximalism of modern-day blockbuster cinema is a somewhat dumbed-down version of what film theorist Tom Gunning championed early, non-narrative silent…
It’s always frustrating when the awesome beauty of manicured, ornate spectacle gets caught in a quagmire of its own ideological reduction. When aesthetics, so…
Between the birth of the civil rights movement and the present dearth of ideological nuance, no small credit should be given to the former…
We all know Star Wars came out in May of 1977 and was an immediate sensation, well on its way to becoming a cultural…
Can the blatant artificiality of cinema fill the gaping void of reality? Acclaimed Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s resilient but consistently hurting Four Daughters…
In a small village in Jharkhand, east India prowls a tiger; this tiger is misogyny, and its fellow tigers constitute the broader institutions of…
An example of the laziness rife in digital filmmaking, Erige Sehiri’s Under the Fig Trees employs a haphazard handheld cinematography that echoes the immediacy…
Out of John Edward Williams’ three seminal novels — a trio of recently rediscovered bildungsromans about hapless young men who live uneventful lives (save…
Implicit to the challenge “how do you want to live?” is the corollary: “how do you want to die?” This is the question at…
Signe Baumane’s films are deeply personal endeavors, peppered with enough humor to grant them an easy charm. Importantly, her animation is distinct, inspired by…
Rebecca Miller’s films often find their core humanity in their characters’ dysfunction: motional tumult, isolation and enmeshment, neuroses and quirky pathologies, all swirling in…
In C.J. Obasi’s latest film, the small, relatively isolated village of Iyi is overseen by Mama Efe (Rita Edochie), the group’s intermediary who lives…
Film is a collection of stills, yet rarely is film still; in the empire of the moving image, action and reaction reign supreme. But…
As climate change continues its steady march toward apocalyptic crescendo, its devastating effects are becoming more and more visible. In 2022, the United States…
Already an acclaimed editor on films such as Carlos Reygadas’ Silent Light & Post Tenebras Lux and Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja, as well as an…
Director Kiohara Yui’s last feature, Our House — which debuted in 2017, and which this writer briefly reviewed here at InRO when it played…
Though they lived a millennium and a half apart, Aristotle and Dante Alighieri shared a conception of love that gave rise to most of…
Far too many movies demand far too little from viewers. Maybe they aren’t asking the right questions, or perhaps the questions themselves are just…