All Light, Everywhere If it hadn’t already been claimed, a much more appropriate title for Theo Anthony’s All Light, Everywhere would be The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes — after all, Anthony’s documentary does posit at one point that “an act of seeing is always an…
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 that there is always substantial, laudable common ground that humanity shares, casting our faults as small obstacles to overcome, nothing that a little…
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 Ron and Russell Mael were two Californian-born musicians. In fact, at that time, Sparks’ work bore a sound that could suggest many origins,…
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 a music piece. Centered around seventeen-year-old Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones), the only hearing member in her deaf family of four, CODA mainly adopts…
Identifying Features Within a cinematic tradition that associates the violence of Mexico’s crime-infested northern border with the high-stakes machismo of drug cartels and CIA spies, Identifying Features sets itself apart by virtue of its provenance and scope. The feature debut of Fernanda Valadez, a young and relatively unknown…
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 DVD bargain bin assuming that those still exist by the time this sentence finishes. In other words, while the title of…
Time From the western to the road movie, the legacy of the climactic homecoming looms large in American cinema, which is everywhere peopled by vagrants and drifters grappling with the belief that, as The Searchers’ elderly Mrs. Jorgensen puts it, “some day this country’s going to be a…
Falling The prospect of spending a couple hours with one of the most tremendously unpleasant movie characters you’re likely to ever encounter might not even be the first reason to check out of Viggo Mortensen’s Falling, but it’s certainly the most apparent. This clearly personal story, written and…
The Best Is Yet to Come Think Spotlight but shot by Yu Lik-wai, Jia Zhang-ke’s favorite DP. Sounds pretty neat, right? And for a while, The Best Is Yet to Come is an involving, topical newsroom drama: Wang Jing zips through the early, procedural-minded portion of his feature directorial…
The Disciple Sharad Nerulkar — the titular disciple in Chaitanya Tamhane’s sophomore feature — is, by most accounts, unexceptional. He’s devoted his life to archiving, preserving, and, most importantly to him, practicing and performing classical Indian vocal music that’s considered outdated and inert by most contemporary standards. It’s…
The Last Word from Your Editor, Sam C. Mac: With the 2010s officially over, the time seems right for another departure: after 12 years (with a small break in the middle), I’m stepping down as this site’s Editor-in-Chief, to be succeeded by co-founder (and unapologetic Iron & Wine-lover) Luke…
The Last Word from Your Editor, Sam C. Mac: With the 2010s officially over, the time seems right for another departure: after 12 years (with a small break in the middle), I’m stepping down as this site’s Editor-in-Chief, to be succeeded by co-founder (and unapologetic Iron & Wine-lover) Luke…
The Last Word from Your Editor, Sam C. Mac: With the 2010s officially over, the time seems right for another departure: after 12 years (with a small break in the middle), I’m stepping down as this site’s Editor-in-Chief, to be succeeded by co-founder (and unapologetic Iron & Wine-lover) Luke…
The Last Word from Your Editor, Sam C. Mac: With the 2010s officially over, the time seems right for another departure: after 12 years (with a small break in the middle), I’m stepping down as this site’s Editor-in-Chief, to be succeeded by co-founder (and unapologetic Iron & Wine-lover) Luke…
It’s been a year of confrontation at the movies, as the domestic and international conflicts of the past several years have reached varying degrees of terminus, seemingly (but just as likely not). Battles in the world between tradition and (r)evolution, in all the myriad forms that those themes…
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 DVD bargain bin assuming that those still exist by the time this sentence finishes. In other words, while the title of In Review Online’s new monthly feature devoted…
Our first dispatch from the 2019 New York Film Festival offers quick takes on a smattering of the festival circuit’s biggest films this year, including: the world premiere of Martin Scorsese’s Netflix-backed, de-aging spectacle, The Irishman; a trio of Cannes Competition entries — The Whistlers, Atlantics, and Oh…
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 DVD bargain bin assuming that those still exist by the time this sentence finishes. In other words, while the title of In Review Online’s new monthly feature devoted…
The inaugural CineCina — officially, New York’s only Chinese cinema-focused film festival — wrapped about a week ago. Featured in this report are just some of the fine narrative and documentary films from across the Chinese diaspora that played as part of the program, including: the fest’s Opening…
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 DVD bargain bin assuming that those still exist by the time this sentence finishes. In other words, while the title of In Review Online’s new monthly feature devoted…