A pitiless Midnight Madness title about demonic possession, the pressing questions going into a film like IFC’s When Evil Lurks really boil down to…
Sebastien Marnier’s latest breezy, twisty thriller The Origin of Evil may lack any deeper interrogation in its Agatha Christie-reinvention of deception, but its strong…
Genre filmmaking is in a weird place currently, and has been for a while now. Self-referentiality, endless didacticism, and an absence of any sense…
Early on in What Comes Around, Amy Redford’s sophomore feature (coming after a 15-year hiatus), it becomes clear that logic will be an absent…
“U.S. history is a branch of a larger tree of history… but it’s that covetous branch that thinks it’s the tree.” Proffered somewhere partway…
Sci-fi-tinged two-hander Biosphere is the latest offering from Mr. Mumblecore himself, Mark Duplass, who not only stars, but also co-wrote the script with director…
It’s a film like Monica that offers you space to question the legitimacy of our major film festivals’ competition branches, a film where only…
Inescapable during the ‘90s and ‘00s yet rendered near instantly obsolete by the iPhone and its assorted imitators, the BlackBerry smartphone feels less like…
In what can be construed both as commendation and criticism, Cristian Mungiu’s R.M.N. is assuredly a film of the times. Its contemporary grappling with…
In case you couldn’t tell from the big goofy afro, pleasant demeanor, and paintbrush, the character of Carl Nargle in Brit Mcadams’ Paint, played…
At the very start of his career, Stephen Frears was seen as part of a wave of exciting British filmmakers, many of whom often…
Two new horror films arrive on screens this week which, paired together, suggest a kind of state-of-the-genre address: Christopher Smith’s Consecration offers a lovingly…
When Empress Elizabeth visits a mental asylum — the sort of place in 1878 where men are institutionalized for mental disorders and women for…
French auteur Jacques Rivette’s relationship to novelist Honoré de Balzac lasted throughout his entire life. His fascination first made its way into his directorial…
Bar Fight! manages the impressive feat of being entirely unfunny for the whole of its runtime. The graveyard of sitcom stars who attempted a…
Four Samosas cribs too liberally without any understanding of how to integrate such influences. At the risk of seeming belligerent or otherwise unfair, Ravi Kapoor’s…
Bad Axe is a tender and heartfelt portrait of a family, town, and nation in crisis. In light of an unprecedented global vaccine effort,…
Vesper is undeniably indebted to a long lineage of sci-fi antecedents, but its peculiar character and keen visual style keeps this a cut above your…