Clint Eastwood is perhaps as iconic a figure as there is in the last half-century of Hollywood cinema. Gunslinger machismo, a hard-nosed boomer ethos, and, especially in certain cinephile circles, a dedication to artistic self-interrogation are among the numerous qualities practically synonymous with his name and image. But…
Throughout modern history, pop and rock music have certainly played a crucial role in a broader socio-political history. Filled with joyful and energetic dynamism, the genres have provided many generations of teenagers across the globe with a sense of liberation and an epicurean amusement in identifying themselves against…
One Fine Morning Stepping back from Cannes’ main competition in favor of the somewhat cooler (in 2022, anyhow), awards-less Directors’ Fortnight lineup, Mia Hansen Løve is already back at the festival with a follow-up to her 2021 entry, Bergman Island. That film, while certainly her highest profile to…
A sharp, intelligent, and character-driven LGBTQ riff on Austen, Fire Island is one of the best things to happen to the rom-com genre in a minute. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a…
Watcher stumbles into the territory of predictability that has sunk many a better horror-thriller before it. Horror inspired by the unique voyeurism of apartment-living and being a stranger in a strange land is nothing new, and with Watcher, director Chloe Okuno attempts to pull these well-worn tropes into…
Léonor Serraille’s Mother and Son is the sort of coming-of-age film that aims to capture life in both small and broad strokes. With a three-part structure that spans a couple decades, Serraille centers each section of the film on a different member of a family — the spirited…
Tori and Lokita Even by their standards, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Tori and Lokita is a relatively to-the-point affair. Set in an unnamed Belgian city, it follows a pair of young immigrants, originally from Benin and Cameroon, who are passing themselves off as brother and sister. When first…
A Beautiful Time is as rich an emotional experience as it is a masterful work of craftsmanship. Truly great Willie Nelson albums come in many different shapes, sizes, and styles: there’s the murder ballad-cum-redemption narrative of Red Headed Stranger, which wouldn’t have fared so well post-cancel culture, but which is still one…
Palomino reminds us that Miranda Lambert is one of our most intuitive record-makers. In 1976, Joni Mitchell sang about the “Refuge of the Road” — about seeking meaning and belonging through constant motion; about the itinerant life as both quest and escape. It’s a powerful concept that many other…
Future It’s been a while since we last heard from Future — if, and only if, one goes off of his previous track record’s metrics. For a while there, starting in 2010 and continuing into the next decade, fans could, at a bare minimum, reliably expect one, maybe…
War Pony The past decade suggests an encroaching — or, perhaps at this point, arrived — renaissance in Indigenous art. Regardless of the medium, native voices are becoming not only pervasive, but essential to the spectrum of modern American art. Authors like Tommy Orange, Brandon Hobson, and Stephen…
Triangle of Sadness Like its titular metaphor, Ruben Östlund’s follow-up to his caustic and controversial Palme winner unfurls in cryptic yet characterizable fashion; in physiognomy, the “triangle of sadness” delineates the space between a person’s eyebrows which, extended thematically, alludes to all the ambiguity or malleability present in…
Writer-director Emmanuelle Nicot’s Love According to Dalva opens with the titular character (Zelda Samson) being violently separated from her father in their own home at the hands of police. Adorned in glitzy evening attire and a heavy smattering of make-up, it’s only in the following scene, at a…
Pacifiction A favorite at Cannes for several years now, self-styled arthouse rockstar Albert Serra has had a dependable home th festival since his (narrative) debut feature Honor de Cavalleria back in 2006. That film, a minimalist reimagining of Don Quixote starring nonprofessional actors and rendered in surprisingly lush…
A favorite at Cannes for several years now, self-styled arthouse rockstar Albert Serra has had a dependable home at the festival since his (narrative) debut feature Honor de Cavalleria back in 2006. That film, a minimalist reimagining of Don Quixote starring nonprofessional actors and rendered in surprisingly lush…
Don Juan Serge Bozon’s follow-up to Madame Hyde (2017), Don Juan seems to continue that film’s revisionist update of a classic tale, while also returning in some fashion to the unorthodox musical genre that La France (2007) so brilliantly embodied. Here, the connection is much more narratively explicit: Laurent…
Final Cut Though remakes of beloved films are usually met with some degree of warranted skepticism, sometimes the combination of director and material is too enticing to ignore. News that Korean zombie hit Train to Busan would receive an American remake was received with expected derision, but that…
Deception should have been prime, loopy material for Desplechin, but instead remains frustratingly staid, only occasionally capturing the spark of his more personal material. A long pursued passion project, Arnaud Desplechin’s latest picture adapts Philip Roth’s 1990 slippery, erotic novel, Deception, into cinematic form for the first time.…
B.I.B.L.E. is evidence that the past year’s features king is only grinding for superstardom, sanding down any Brooklyn drill edges in favor of bland studio polish. “I’m fightin’ my demons while fuckin’ this demon,” Fivio Foreign claims on the Kanye West tribute track “Through the Fire” (the song…
A deeply personal record of disillusionment and quiet rage, Skinty Fia is easily Fontaines D.C.’s most adventurous work yet. The 2010s brought with them an international post-punk renaissance which spawned a plethora of noteworthy acts such as German punk poets Messer, English dada-druggies Fat White Family, and American…