At the risk of painting with too broad a brush, Sébastien Pilote’s traditional treatment of Louis Hemon’s Maria Chapdelaine is a headline for all…
Titane What is the role of “transgressive” art in an ostensibly liberal society? Or, to put it another way: In a cultural context where…
To make an effective political film, one frequently turns to documentary as the best medium for truth; it’s hard to deny in exemplars of…
Reflection While Ukrainian writer/director Valentin Vasyanovych has been making films for a number of years, his breakthrough didn’t come until 2019’s Atlantis, which garnered…
Wife of a Spy can be too reserved in stretches, but is ultimately fully invigorated by its monumental conclusion. Though over three decades into…
One of the central tensions in cinema is that of authenticity: The inherent power of this medium comes from its depiction of images and…
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…
TMBMZM oddly tilts toward authenticity rather than camp, to disappointing results. The Manson Brothers Midnight Zombie Massacre is a title that promises a lot.…
Striding Into the Wind One of the central tensions in cinema is that of authenticity: The inherent power of this medium comes from its…
Fucking with Nobody is a radical, playful bit of meta-comedy that executes its risky conceit with aplomb. For her sophomore feature, Fucking with Nobody, Finnish…
Dating abd New York offers sporadic pleasures, but can’t shake loose its obvious cribbing of familiar cinematic influences. Dating and New York, Jonah Feingold’s…
Language Lessons never quite becomes more than an acting exercise, but it’s still offers up intriguing questions about the disparity between online and offline personae.…
To put Maurice Pialat’s 1980 masterpiece Loulou into words is a deceptively challenging task. The premise seems simple: restless Parisian woman Nelly (Isabelle Huppert)…
Who You Think I Am attempts to speak to our current Internet age, but mines only shallowly with its picked-over storytelling mode. Juliette Binoche, for…
Superhost isn’t heavy on style and runs out of steam too early, but Gracie Gillam’s outlandishly unhinged performance keep things from becoming bland rehash. A…
Yellow Cat is the kind of cribbing-as-mode film that illuminates nothing other than the kinds of movies its director likes. Godard once declared that all…
Sinkhole Nearly a decade after his previous feature, the 2012 big-budget disaster movie tentpole The Tower — South Korea’s very belated answer to The…
Filipino romantic drama Here and There opens with feisty heroine Len (Janine Gutierrez) engaging in an online war of words with the earnest and…
Wife of a Spy Though over three decades into his varied, distinctive career, American critics have only really paid Kiyoshi Kurosawa intermittent attention, almost…