It often seems like we’ve let Lana Del Rey down at every turn. But she’s always been patient enough to wait for us to come around to her side of things — and kind enough to not hold a grudge against those who don’t…
On the Beach at Night Alone is Hong Sang-soo’s most sensitive character study since Nobody’s Daughter Haewon, and in the context of his relationship with lead actress Kim Min-hee — and the ensuing tabloid-fueled scandal their affair caused — it’s also Hong’s most self-questioning…
As InRO‘s Lawrence Garcia put it, the best thing about film festivals is seeing something that will completely surprise you — and he and I definitely agree that The Dreamed Path is surprising. Angela Schanelec’s film opens with a couple — Kenneth (Thorbjörn Björnsson) and Theres (Miriam…
The finest films of 2017 simultaneously offered us a respite from, and a deeper reflection on, our fraught and fractured social and political realities. In sharp contrast to our unfortunate tendency to segregate ourselves with social media-fueled enclaves and ecosystems that do little more than…
Commissioned as part of Nikkatsu’s line of Roman Porno reboots, and adherent to its rules, Sion Sono’s ANTIPORNO is, as its title suggests, a screed against the pornography industry and the false liberation it purports to offer. Via the sort of direct, crazed monologuing typical…
Scott Cooper is not a subtle filmmaker. Further proof of this comes in the first five minutes of his Hostiles, when two young children and a swaddled baby are killed by the rifles of marauding Comanches. Beginning in 1890s New Mexico, Cooper’s latest follows…
Downsizing represents a departure from a filmography built on incisive character studies and black comedy; Alexander Payne imbues his latest with a broader tonal register, and with mixed results. The film takes place at some point in the near future, where breakthroughs in cellular…
Guillermo del Toro abandons his recent efforts at delivering alt-blockbusters and curating photography for interior design catalogs with The Shape of Water. A mute-mermaid romance set against a backdrop of Cold War-era espionage, del Toro’s latest showcases typically gorgeous production design that actually serves…
Perhaps in answer to fans who complained that The Force Awakens was just a collection of rehashed elements and nostalgia with a shiny paint job, Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi, the might-be Empire Strikes Back of this new trilogy, is the most unusual and stealthily satisfying…
The 60 year-old Aki Kaurismäki has declared that his latest, The Other Side of Hope, will be his swan song. There’s cause to treat the excitable director’s threat, which he made at the Berlin Film Festival this year, with some skepticism: He made the same claim…
