If there is any affinity to be found between Steven Soderbergh and Olivier Assayas, it’s in their shared ability to turn the economics of filmmaking to their advantage, to leverage each project into a veritably Situationist endeavor — or, in other words, to recognize “the game on top…
A deeply idiosyncratic survey of 20th-century political and social mores, director Pietro Marcello’s Martin Eden transplants Jack London’s 1909 novel from the American West Coast to a liminal version of Italy situated somewhere in a limbo between the turn of the century and the two World Wars. Like…
Yourself and Yours almost slipped through the cracks. Released in 2016, in the space between the long-awaited breakthrough that was the 2015 release of Right Now, Wrong Then and the news-breaking of the scandalous affair between that film’s star Kim Min-hee and her director Hong Sang-soo. While distributors struggled to…
Soul is another complex, cosmic effort from Pixar, and a quietly joyous send-off to a relentlessly bleak year. It makes a certain sense to end 2020, a year of profound uncertainty, by asking ourselves what it all means. Why are we here and does any of this actually matter?…
Wonder Woman 1984 is bloated at 151 minutes, but the chemistry of its leads and throwback hokey vibes are enough to recommend its particular superhero pleasures. In case you couldn’t guess from the title, we catch up with Diana Prince (Gal Gadot), last seen just after World War I,…
From our Honorable Mentions post: It goes without saying that 2020 was a year like none other in recent history. Significantly, by virtue of living through such times, it’s also a year that retuned minds to see history being made in the present. There are certainly more critical sociocultural…
From our Honorable Mentions post: It goes without saying that 2020 was a year like none other in recent history. Significantly, by virtue of living through such times, it’s also a year that retuned minds to see history being made in the present. There are certainly more critical…
From our Honorable Mentions post: While many of us lingered and struggled inside of our homes — and are still patiently following quarantine protocols until this global pandemic ends (with the major exceptions here being NBA YoungBoy and The Chainsmokers) — the best albums released in 2020 were able to transport…
The Last Blockbuster is little more than a celebrity-filled version of the same conversation you have with your friends when reminiscing about the “good ole days” of pre-Internet movie renting. Corporate nostalgia gets quite a workout in The Last Blockbuster, Taylor Morden’s breezy documentary on the world’s lone Blockbuster…
Billie offers a look at one complex woman through the lens of another, each with a distinct story that director James Erskine manages to weave into an impressive if unambitious narrative. In February 1978, young arts writer and journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl was found dead under mysterious circumstances,…
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…
My Prince Edward is presided over by star Stephy Tang and director Norris Wong, both of whom reject schematism in favor of more subtle, surprising work. No pop star acts quite like Stephy Tang. Most singers who turn to movies carry some kind of flamboyance with them, a projection…
Love, Weddings & Other Disasters is sub-Garry Marshall drek built upon half-assed jokes and underdeveloped storylines. Dennis Dugan has gifted the world some of Adam Sandler’s best films (Happy Gilmore and You Don’t Mess With the Zohan stand out) and punished it with some of his worst (Jack and…
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…
Farewell Amor resembles, in shape, less accomplished recent indie efforts, but it eschews much of their patness in creating something altogether more complex and affecting. From a cursory glance, one could be forgiven for dismissing Ekwa Msangi’s feature debut, Farewell Amor, as yet another recrudescent addition to the selfsame…
Wild Mountain Thyme is a hurried, generic The Quiet Man-Hallmark fairy tale mashup, with all the mess and none of the fun that description suggests. From the moment the trailer for Wild Mountain Thyme dropped in early November, the film has faced a healthy backlash from viewers who have criticized the off-base…
Window Boy Would Also Like to Have a Submarine thankfully manages to avoid status quo filmmaking but still feels somehow unfinished. There seems to be a popular, contemporary aesthetic that utilizes a retreat into narrative alienation, where the sum of static wides and a distanced ennui, enveloped within often…
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…
All My Life adopts the familiar form of any number of tragic romances without building any depth into its vision. Jessica Rothe is undoubtedly one of the most promising young actresses working in film today. Her calling card is the particular brand of charm and playfulness she exudes, marked…
Nomadland’s delicate attention to storytelling tradition unfortunately gives way to conventionality in the film’s back half, displacing its early promise. Having just taken the top prize at this year’s Venice Film Festival, Nomadland begins its journey towards Oscar gold. That’s admittedly a flip assessment of a film that…