There’s very little to distinguish Belfast as a work of art, a film that uses its dramatic and formal elements only in service of feel-good…
Larrain is given massive assists courtesy of Stewart and Spencer’s A/V artists, but everyone is let down time and again by the film’s wildly unsubtle script.…
The Souvenir: Part II plays out largely as protracted epilogue, a fumbling, detached work that negates the first film’s powerful ending. Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s 1778…
Obayashi’s final film is an apporpriately madcap, delirious submersion into the very heart of cinema, and is an articulation of its power in a…
The French Dispatch is the latest Wes Anderson film to be utterly encumbered by the director’s propeller-beanie twee and flattened storytelling chops. For better or…
After Asako I & II, Hamaguchi’s latest can’t help but feel like something of a step backward into less aesthetically daring filmmaking. “Once Again”, the…
Bergman Island is an intentionally ephemeral, frictionless bit of meta-fiction, conceptually justifiable but all the more frustrating for it. Mia Hansen-Løve’s Bergman Island is, quite…
Titane admirably reconciles opposites and piles on texture and sensation, but ultimately reveals itself far too content to trade only in cliché. What is the…
Wife of a Spy can be too reserved in stretches, but is ultimately fully invigorated by its monumental conclusion. Though over three decades into…
The Card Counter takes a similar shape to many of Schrader’s Lonely Man films, but this latest can’t quite overcome the template and thrive…
Isabella is another bold effort from Piñeiro, and a indication of the direction his particular art is headed. Isabella, the latest feature from Argentine…
Flag Day’s aesthetic cribbing and histrionic character result in a floundering film that feels too desperate by half. The realm of biography occupies an…
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…
Ema is Larrain’s best film yet, a technical marvel and narrative step forward that hopefully anticipates the tenor of his next stretch of work. It…
Annette is somehow both Carax’s weirdest and safest film, a letdown even as its vision remains bold. One-time enfant terrible Leos Carax, foremost contemporary…
Tsai’s latest, like the director’s best works, revels in the unexpected, sublime textures of daily routine and understated tenderness. Those familiar with Tawainese auteur Tsai…
Stillwater tiptoes around complex, potentially rich discourse without ever committing to any real ideological principle. Who is Tom McCarthy, really? Once a semi-successful TV actor,…
Her Socialist Smile is yet another landmark work from Gianvito, more intimate than his usual but no less fiercely and formally intelligent. John Gianvito’s Vapor…