God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya operates as a harsh critique of a deeply misogynist world. Teona Strugar Mitrevska’s understated Macedonian satire — often more brutal than…
The 69th Berlinale ran from February 7 – 17. Our own Joe Biglin was there, and is continuing to file dispatches from the fest (delayed due…
If A City of Sadness represents Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien’s greatest achievement to date — an assessment that its Venice Golden Lion and long-standing reputation would seem to…
It would be difficult to summarize the aesthetic of M. Night Shyamalan’s work of the past decade in one fell swoop, but there are a number…
“I don’t want to be an example. I just want to be a girl,” says Lara (Victor Polster), the title character of Girl, Lukas Dhont’s highly acclaimed…
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 into some…
If there is such a thing as the ‘banality of evil,’ surely Ashin Wirathu is a poster boy for it. An unassuming looking man with…
At least for awhile, the new essay film by the pushing-90 French auteur Jean-Luc Godard plays like a liberally abridged version of his magnum opus, Histoire(s) du cinéma. The…
Manolo Caro’s Perfect Strangers asks the question: how much do we really know about our nearest and dearest? Based on Paolo Genovese’s 2016 Italian comedy, this…
Before Jobe’z World establishes itself as a new, classic New York night movie, it’s already up in the cosmos: the refracted neon twinkle and burbling…
Two decades on now and Turkey’s Nuri Bilge Ceylan has become something of a genre unto himself. To those that concern themselves with film festivals and prestigey…
In Dan Sallitt’s new film, focus is put on personal, rather than systemic, emotional responsibility. Fourteen is about an unbalanced friendship, one that might look…
The 69th Berlinale runs from February 7 – 17. Our own Joe Biglin is there, and will be filing dispatches from the fest. The first dispatch includes his…
It is the proclivity of many a film-watcher to make a director’s body of work conform to a linear narrative — and while it isn’t rare that a filmmaker winks at, and…
In taking on the horrors of Vietnam, Brian De Palma’s Casualties of War may be said to mark a departure for the American director of…
Any talk of this film would be remiss without mention of its legendary tagline: “He came into town with his cock in his hand, and…
Through its ongoing effort to inundate viewers with as much content as possible, Netflix presents Revenger, a mostly boring action movie starring Bruce Khan, a stunt man and former Jackie…
“Seen through the wrong end of a telescope, an ordinary scene becomes an ancient story. No, it’s not nostalgia! It’s heartache for all that’s lost.”…
“This is the feverish, painful expression of a man who lives in mortal fear of his own mediocrity,” concludes Dave Kehr’s negative Chicago Reader review…
In the U.S., the films of Japanese director Naomi Kawase have often been met with apprehension, not accorded the same respect as other celebrated works from the European…
There’s a lengthy, terrific scene in Glass, in which the protagonists — three people with extraordinary abilities — are confronted both by each other and by…