While most of the films produced during the heyday of Hong Kong action cinema took place either in Hong Kong or in historical China, some…
No matter how common the surroundings or how ordinary the story may be, a Christian Petzold film always catches the viewer by surprise. His films…
The mainstream romantic drama matters. Movies on the artier end of the spectrum — Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless…
Writer-director-actress Grace Glowicki hasn’t yet ascended to the same level of indie prestige as Kate Lyn Sheil, Deragh Campbell, or (now mainstream power player) Greta…
Ever since his debut fiction film My Joy (2010) premiered in the main competition of Cannes, Sergei Loznitsa has been a repeat visitor to the…
Honest question: do we live in a post-cinematic world? Equally honest answer: no, of course not, cinema can absolutely meet the moment. The tools afforded…
Dolly lays its porcelain head at the altar of Leatherface. Rod Blackhurst’s bootstraps indie horror is unabashedly pious toward The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the seminal…
There’s an early scene in Amy Wang’s Slanted where our main character, Joan Huang (Shirley Chen), is shown scrolling through social media while wearing a clothespin fastened…
Sometimes you can tell right away that you’re in for a thoroughly generic bit of junk food, but that’s not always instructive of quality. Often,…
In a depressive musical landscape where the only things pop stars seem to sing about are wanting to have sex, having sex, and regretting having…
If you weren’t around to experience it in real time, it will be hard to grasp how seismic the 2002 FIFA World Cup feud between…
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! brashly announces in its opening title card that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein on a dare, and that’s an ethos the film itself has…
We need to talk about Tommy. In Jan Komasa’s Heel, Tommy (Anson Boon) is a proper hooligan. His nights out mean rails of cocaine in…
Hoppers, the latest animation project from Pixar/Disney, exceeds according to at least one important metric: it’s a familiar product, offering easily consumable family-fare and realizing…
For the most part, the documentaries that have made Gianfranco Rosi’s reputation have a firm basis in geography. Sacro GRA (2013) explored life in Rome…