Director David Mackenzie has had a fascinating career; in the past, we’d likely consider him a talented journeyman, the sort of solid professional who can…
“So it returns. Think you’re escaping and run into yourself. Longest way round is the shortest way home.” — James Joyce, Ulysses As the second…
Alex Russell’s debut feature, Lurker, is a mask-off exploration of rabid stan culture taken to extremes. When ascendant pop star Oliver (Archie Madekwe) walks into…
In all the consternation over the disappearance of the theatrical comedy, a trend hastened by post-Covid viewing habits that find comedies being largely relegated to…
Did you know that because 1985’s Red Sonja, which starred Brigitte Nielsen and Arnold Schwarzenegger, was not actively based on Conan creator Robert Howard’s character…
Carlos Reygadas’s Silent Light (2007) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007, where it won the Jury Prize, and has since remained one of…
“Trauma horror,” or “grief horror,” has become so ubiquitous that the subgenre has infiltrated even the most quotidian commercial horror films; it seems that the…
The Dead of Winter The cold is often a conduit for ardent symbolism, whether in the frozen recesses of repressed memories or in the merciless…
Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. When Tony Tost’s Americana, a flyover country-set crime drama built around an interconnected ensemble, premiered at the…
2021’s Nobody, which starred Bob Odenkirk as a suburban family man who is actually, basically, John Wick, was a breakout hit during the Covid days.…
In the late 1950s, Brazilian footballer Didi introduced a new technique for kicking the ball, the so called “dry leaf.” Much like a leaf falling…
Nisha Ganatra’s film Freakier Friday is the perfect case study in Disney’s endlessly stretchable IP. The idea for it all started with Mary Roger’s 1972…
“Welcome to the new West,” in which teenage rodeo riders with undercuts listen to cloud rap and horses are sold on TikTok. In East of…
It’s always fortuitous for a documentary filmmaker to find themselves able to capture seismic historical shifts as they are happening. But of course, this is…
Given the muted critical response and prolonged time period between its festival premiere and eventual (limited) distribution, the new Olivier Assayas film has apparently been…
While at 5’5” both he and Woody Allen are the same height, Roman Polanski stands tallest on the Mount Rushmore of reviled living filmmakers. As…
Dry Leaf Seeking to reduce a filmmaker’s chief thematic preoccupation is usually a waste of time, for any one worth their stuff works in a…
Genndy Tartakovsky has earned the one for him. As creator of some of the most seminal animated television of the late ‘90s and early 2000s,…
Peter Fonda’s self-produced Idaho Transfer (1972) exists online as a decrepit VHS rip and a few equally shoddy digital re-uploads. I’ve heard tell of an…
In the intro to My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 – Last Air in Moscow, director Julia Loktev states that none of the subjects or herself…
On the basis of his two solo outings as a writer-director, the filmmaker Zach Cregger has established a bit of a lane to himself in…