Pleasure “Are you here for business or for pleasure?” “Pleasure.” Leaving her Swedish small-town life for the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles, 19-year-old Linnéa…
Life in a Day 2020 Documentaries like Life in a Day 2020 practically cling with desperation to a concept of the universal. Such works insist…
Queen of Black Magic is a brutal, go-for-break bit of exciting horror filmmaking. Kimo Stamboel doesn’t have the same profile as Timo Tjahjanto, his filmmaking partner…
John and the Hole Tapped by Cannes for its theoretical 2020 slate, John and the Hole carried a bit more intrigue than most films heading…
Dara of Jasenovac borders of propaganda, more concerned with stoking ongoing political turmoil than honoring the tragedy at its core. Dara of Jasenovac, Serbia’s official submission…
The Sparks Brothers For most of their fans and listeners, a first encounter with Sparks did not result in the assumption that the duo of…
It seems only appropriate that Wong Kar-wai would lend his name as producer to One for the Road, an epic melodrama from Thai director Nattawut…
Knocking, a psychological thriller of sorts that details one woman’s deteriorating mental state as she’s driven mad by mysterious noises emanating from the apartment above…
In 1971, after being cast in legendary filmmaker Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice, 15-year-old Björn Andrésen was thrust into international fame after the director declared…
CODA The title of Siân Heder’s sophomore feature is twofold: an acronym for the “child of deaf adults,” and the concluding passage or movement of…
Beginning emerges from the influence of obvious formal antecedents to become a stirring, singular work from a new cinematic worth following. On its surface, Dea Kulumbegashvili’s…
Penguin Bloom tries to expand itself a bit from template filmmaking, but mostly still trades in familiar disability narrative tropes and obvious metaphors. Regrettably, there…
Saint Maud is another A24 exercise in elevated, modulated horror but is fairly absent of anything beyond empty, artful pretense. It’s been a long journey to…
Zhu Shengze’s Present.Perfect. is preceded by information about the state of live-streaming in China, making clear its overwhelming popularity in the country — there were…
Malcolm and Marie is an affecting meditation on the private life of relationships and the closed-door conflicts that arise in the absence of an audience.…
The Night hints at building nuance into its familiar template, but ultimately jumbles familiar genre tropes to no discernible end. It’s never a good look to…
Liborio’s initial enigmas ultimately give way to something tidier and less pleasantly challenging. Olivorio Mateo, a farmer-turned-prophet whose providential oversight and teachings later influenced the…
True Mothers bears Kawase’s familiar textures and ambiance but is hampered by a few too many banal plot beats. Adapted from a 2015 bestseller by Mizuki…
The Little Things is a stylistically bankrupt, psychologically facile yawn of a movie. Largely forgotten in all the talk these days about how modest studio films…
Palmer has noble intentions and a winning performance from Timberlake, but it’s thematically undercooked and tonally jarring. Apple TV+’s Palmer, the latest film from actor/director Fisher…