We’re back on Pandora, which according to multiple credible reports, still ain’t Kansas. 2022’s The Way of Water proved that James Cameron’s richly imagined and immaculately realized alien world is a showcase not merely for the dazzling technical marvel on display, but for his ruthless ability to sweep…
Now three movies and seven years into his career as a filmmaker, the Philly transplant/West Village resident Bradley Cooper has featured a singer, a composer, and now a standup comedian in his work. His latest, Is This Thing On? — a film brought to him by his friend,…
That George W. Bush’s war on terror was a farce is all but written history. The craven hunt for oil under the guise of WMDs resulted in over 940,000 casualties and drew enough bipartisan criticism to land as a talking point for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign; The…
One of the quirks of Lisa Jorgenson (Reese Witherspoon) in James L. Brooks’ 2010 film How Do You Know is a tendency to speak in pre-packaged pearls of wisdom, where one gets the impression that the structural integrity of her interior life is a neurotic composition of self-help…
The Old Man and His Car There is a good deal of sentimental value, both real and inflated, in Michael Kam’s The Old Man and His Car, most glaringly clued in by its titular reference to Hemingway. Sentiment and simplicity are a kindred pair, Kam seems to say,…
The concert film documents the ecstasies of performance; the biopic narrativizes its painstaking preparations. In between these two modes stands the rehearsal film, capturing the sensitivities of perspectives and personalities amid its crafting of the larger, all-encompassing purpose to which these individuals are devoted. True to form, Jac…
Having propelled himself to cinephilic fame with the mesmerizing Kaili Blues (2015) and, more recently, an audaciously mind-bending interpretation of dreams in 2018’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, Chinese auteur Bi Gan has come to be lauded for his seductive and hypnotic cinematic form, a form inextricably fostered…
Michael Showalter, in the past decade, has parlayed his success as a comedic writer and performer into a career as a writer-director of audience-pleasing dramedies on film and television, representing microgenres from the prestige biopic to the age-gap romance, and often anchored by strong performances from seasoned actresses.…
Now in its 36th edition, the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) has taken on a most prominent role within the country’s cultural landscape, drawing younger and younger audiences among its wide demographic range to participate in an ongoing series of conversations centered around the world of cinema. Founded…
Over the weekend of November 14-16, I viewed the entirety of Twin Peaks: The Return, screened thanks to the great efforts of the Philadelphia Film Society. Parts 1-4 were shown Friday night, parts 5-11 on Saturday, and parts 12-18 on Sunday. It was, perhaps needless to say, a…
Julia Jackman’s sophomore feature 100 Nights of Hero, adapted from Isabel Greenberg’s graphic novel of the same name, has the shape and tone of a fairy tale, coupled with a clear reference to One Thousand and One Nights. In a fantasy world that worships the patriarchal god Birdman…
In Japan, where customs and a sturdy veneer of politeness greatly determine how people interact with one another, there is a strong emphasis on propriety, which comes with its ups and downs. Propriety stifles creative expression, suppressing much-needed raw emotion; it also sets out new paths of release…
2024 has shaped up to be a boon year for DIY cinema, with achievements like Hundreds of Beavers and The People’s Joker emerging as critical darlings and massive audience hits alike. Despite their minuscule budgets and relatively unknown performers, these films have been lauded for their formal ingenuity…
Perhaps we’ve been sold an overly literal version of heaven when we jump at the chance to live forever. While theologians balk at how transactional the idea is (80-odd years of good behavior for everlasting happiness), preachers and any self-help guru worth their salt capitulate nonetheless to our…
Sequel naming conventions can be a funny thing. The majority will opt for merely adding the next sequential numeral — Roman or otherwise — while others will eschew a traditional numbering system for the prestigious subtitle. (And some will offer both, as in the case of Breakin’ 2:…
Silence — like its two unassuming allies, stillness and slowness — is often positioned as a response to mainstream cinema’s reckless noisiness. But contemporary indie Indian cinema that has most recently garnered international acclaim — like, Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes (2022) and, to a lesser extent, Neeraj…
Follies If the sex comedy has become a rare breed in the two decades since its American Pie-to-Apatow heyday in the aughts, the marriage comedy, a staple of the classical Hollywood screwball comedy with origins in Shakespearean romance, has been largely dead as the dodo since the 1940s. Perhaps…
“Life is cheesy sometimes,” says Liz (Valerie Pachner) in voiceover, moments before turning around at the airport and running back to embrace her lover, Ahmed (Amir El-Masry). Life might be cheesy, but it’s never that ironic and self-conscious. Great emotions don’t come to us in quotation marks. The…
If the sex comedy has become a rare breed in the two decades since its American Pie-to-Apatow heyday in the aughts, the marriage comedy, a staple of the classical Hollywood screwball comedy with origins in Shakespearean romance, has been largely dead as the dodo since the 1940s. Perhaps…
It’s quite obvious at this point that Netflix has firmed up their annual Christmas lineup formula by tugging at millennials’ soft spots via a mix of throwback nostalgia, cozy seasonal sentiment, and the casting of cherished teen icons of yesteryear. Over the past few holidays, we’ve seen Lindsay…