Emblematic of kitchen-sink realism, Jesse Dvorak’s feature debut is a paradigmatic unfurling of anticipated beats and narrativity. Baby, Don’t Cry, written by and starring Zita…
Back to the Wharf Li Xiaofeng’s Back to the Wharf begins with a tragic accident that escalates, shockingly, to murder. After high school student Song…
In the Same Breath boasts plenty of charged imagery and emotion, but its pat dialectics and dangling theses undermine its intellectual power. For a while,…
The Last Matinee is a modern Giallo effort that fails to reimagine, evolve, or even properly understand the form. The use of movie theaters as a…
Free Guy is the rare tentpole based on an original idea rather than existing IP, and supplements that present-day novelty with a game cast and genuine…
Beckett On paper, Beckett would seem to hold plenty of promise. Directed by Ferdinando Cito Filomarino and produced by his ex, Luca Guadagnino, the film…
Respect is a generic, overlong, unconvincing slog that’s disrespectful to the Queen of Soul’s legacy. When it comes to portraying pop culture icons known by millions…
Beckett rides the talents of its stacked crew to the most generic possible destination. On paper, Beckett would seem to hold plenty of promise. Directed by…
Thrice Upon a Time is yet another bold, challenging, pathos-filled apocalyptic plunge into the human psyche. Hideaki Anno is doing it all over again. No,…
Shunji Iwai is one of the most reliably adventurous mainstream directors in world cinema today. A quick look at his recent output: After his epic…
1982’s supernatural horror flick The Entity — based on a true story, mind you — concerned a woman who was repeatedly assaulted and raped by…
Following the success of a documentary based on their experiences as addicts, two of the subjects and the director of Reindeerspotting: Escape From Santaland take…
There’s a rich history of indie filmmakers getting their start with low-budget crime pictures. It’s easy to see why: The genre gives ample opportunities for…
Bull There’s no shortage of revenge pictures out there; at this point, it’s such a well-trod genre that it’s gone through its own classical-to-revisionist-and-back-again cycle.…
CODA’s personal storytelling and intelligent subversion of its middlebrow formulae make for a surprisingly affecting viewing experience. The title of Siân Heder’s sophomore feature is…
White As Snow adds a wry wrinkle of feminist reclamation to its classic storyline, but unfortunately fails to successfully execute much else. Like so many other…
Generations isn’t doing anything all that novel for static-shot documentary filmmaking, but as an exercise in how to watch cinema, it’s a plenty worthy effort. Stop me if…
Jerzy Skolimowski had a distinctive output well before he ended up in London. He began his film career in his native Poland with three successive…
After a mediocre attempt at reviving the jiangshi hopping vampire movie as one half of the directing team behind Vampire Cleanup Department, Hong Kong actor…
Hong Kong director Ann Hui joins several of her most illustrious peers as the subject of a biographical documentary, Keep Rolling. Unlike Hou Hsiao-hsien, Jia…