Though still relatively early in his career, initial indications are that arterial spray and pulverized bones are to Brandon Cronenberg’s filmography what unnatural orifices are…
On the occasion of him winning the Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival for his film Shoplifters, I called Hirokazu Kore-eda “the Ron…
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed proceeds in such awe of its subject that it strips the film of any thorniness that the material demands. All…
Triangle of Sadness vacillates between slight but sly commentary and outright gaudiness, but an enigmatic, delightfully bathetic ending ushers Östlund’s film out on a high note.…
Moonage Daydream is a joyous, eccentric, and experimental documentary that should please Bowie fanatics, glam rock die-hards, and adventurous cinephiles in equal measure. If one were…
Fire of Love is an gorgeous visual document that is somewhat undermined by its inorganic and distracting voiceover work. Despite boasting a title that seems…
Beba is a uniquely fascinating or formally gorgeous mining of personal history, one that fully immerses viewers into its subject’s headspace. “You are now entering…
Crimes of the Future is a fascinating, ambitious project from Cronenberg, who readily sources his own career-long preoccupations in the creation of something that feels…
In ultimately providing too many answers to its excessive plotting, A Chiara extinguishes some of its more troubling and intriguing possibilities. A gangster film from the…
Pleasure isn’t the first film to attack the intersection of capitalism, misogyny, and exploitation endemic to the porn industry, but it does so with style…
Petite Maman is both Sciamma’s most intimate and epic work, a gently profound fable about youth’s uneasy passage into adulthood. Celine Sciamma’s characters have always existed…
Erudite and playful and moving, The Worst Person in the World is brimming with ideas and feeling, and executed with the touch of a master storyteller. First…
Memoria is another masterwork from Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a slow unfurling of personal and nationals pasts that challenges and entrances in equal measure. Frequent In Review Online…
Flee is inoffensive and sweet enough, but also a totally blunt object that fails muster much actual power under the influence of its overt messaging. Danish…
The First Wave isn’t much more than an ornamental object, pointlessly self-assured in its distasteful aesthetic manipulations. The compartmentalization that contemporary documentary tends to engender —…
Larrain is given massive assists courtesy of Stewart and Spencer’s A/V artists, but everyone is let down time and again by the film’s wildly unsubtle script. With…
Titane admirably reconciles opposites and piles on texture and sensation, but ultimately reveals itself far too content to trade only in cliché. What is the role…
Ailey ably captures and reflects its eponymous subject’s abiding vision: art’s capacity as a universal language. On December 4, 1988, dancer-choreographer Alvin Ailey received the…
Pig isn’t the Nic Cage film you’re expecting — it’s better. It’s tough to recall a recent film — particularly outside the auteur context — that…
Both politically and aesthetically, New Order is an ironic and troubling proclamation of solidarity with the old, regressive guard. The refinement of taste, an ongoing exploration of…
With The Killing of Two Lovers, Robert Machoian constructs a difficult balance between simple-yet-impressive visual techniques and more frenzied audio compositions to drive an underwhelming narrative.…