The title of Woody Allen’s latest film translates as “a lucky break,” and that’s an apt enough way to characterize his ability to line up…
At first blush (and the next few, for that matter), actress Brittany Snow’s directorial debut, Parachute, which premiered in the Narrative Feature Competition at the…
The rare eagerly anticipated sequel to a hit documentary, Girls State, from filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, understandably exists in the shadow of Boys…
Prior to the premiere of The Old Oak at Cannes back in May, Ken Loach indicated that this would be his last feature film. Granted,…
Death hangs over Jeff Rutherford’s keenly observed and poignant feature debut, A Perfect Day for Caribou. We meet Herman (Jeb Barrier), a scruffy, world-weary man…
In an interview with Michael Haneke about 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994), the final part of the director’s then lesser-known Glaciation Trilogy (1989 – 1994),…
“You are a baby man.” Less an insult than an observation, these words spoken to Lousy Carter (David Krumholtz) by his ex Candela (Olivia Thirlby)…
Steve Buscemi’s directorial efforts have tended to focus on outsiders and castoffs. In his 1996 debut, Trees Lounge, the hopeless and downhearted congregate at a…
With 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong, director Adam Wingard became one of the few Western filmmakers to realize that the kaiju movie is more a graphic…
A man living by himself in a small, ramshackle house. A knock at the door. A stranger asking for help who may or may not…
At the height of the pandemic, one of the more uplifting trends on social media were videos of people living in cities, clanging pots and…
In an edition of surprises, programming eclecticism, and a refreshingly measured jury performance, Nicolas Philibert’s Golden Bear win for his latest documentary might yet prove…
Slackers have been the bread and butter of indie cinema since 90’s mainstays like Clerks and Slacker helped jumpstart the whole modern American independent film…
In a sea of forgettable, workman-like mediocrity, let us appreciate Luc Besson’s DogMan for being something of a rarity: an honest-to-goodness fiasco born of a…
Maggie Barrett and Joel Meyerowitz are a fascinating couple, and Jacob Permutter and Manon Ouimet’s new film about their marriage, Two Strangers Trying Not to…
A woman speaks French as the top third of the image reveals itself to the audience, the rest of the screen blank. A man in…
“Toys are too preoccupied with fun,” Alejandro (Julio Torres) declares in a cover letter to Hasbro during the opening of Torres’ debut feature film Problemista.…
Where do irony and sincerity stand today, both with respect to each other and to the cultural scene at large? A litmus test for endorsing…
Hollywood film scholar Thomas Schatz’s essay “Film Genre and the Genre Film” describes our relationship with the film genre as both static and dynamic. The…
Russell Crowe plays ex-cop Roy Freeman in the mystery thriller Sleeping Dogs, a film that feels like it was made dispassionately by a committee of…