Desert of Namibia At first, Yoko Yamanaka’s Desert of Namibia seems to be just another entry in what this writer is calling Millennium Mambo-core, after…
Since his emergence on the periphery of the “New French Extremity” in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Bruno Dumont has continued to carve out…
You could argue that it’s extremely ironic that The Electric State, an absolutely dismal movie about humanity learning to love corporate-branded A.I. robots rising up…
Independent American filmmaking in the 1970s features many showcases of distinctive actor-director relationships. One of them: Joan Micklin Silver and her many great actors, including…
Suspended Time Given the muted critical response and prolonged time period between its festival premiere and eventual (limited) distribution, the new Olivier Assayas film has…
Empires, as a rule, do not exist in the plural, for each empire conceives of itself as sovereign and total. In practice, this solipsism has…
Someone inside one of the UK’s intelligence agencies has stolen a device that could lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and…
“This must be my punishment,” narrates Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), as he recalls the frog he tortured in a grade school science class. Mickey is…
Henry Fonda for President Thoughtful film curation asks us to consider films in a new light. Alexander Horwath knows this better than most, having served…
In the 1980s, a loose-knit group of Canadian filmmakers began producing and directing independent films that gained national recognition around an aesthetic of kitchen-sink realism…
“We know not this thing as it is in itself, but only know its appearances.” – Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will…
As February comes to a close, we’re back with more new reviews of this month’s latest releases. Here you’ll find our thoughts on everything from big entries like The Monkey, Captain America…
Inland Empire is to Mulholland Drive how Twin Peaks: The Return is to the first two seasons of Twin Peaks — a film/TV series about…
Million Dollar Baby might open abruptly onto a brightly lit boxing ring, with two men contained in its boundaries and loudly grunting as they vigorously…
In the Mouth In the Mouth, the sophomore feature from Cory Santilli (Saul at Night, 2019) is everything from a film noir to a prison…
Watching Fabrice-Ange Zaphiratos’ Blood Beat in 2025 is a wild sensory experience. It has the (ahem) beats of a slasher while boasting atmospheric sound design,…
In Oz Perkins’ The Monkey, a mechanical wind-up monkey that plays a drum (but don’t call it a toy) serves as a harbinger of death.…
When Chris Evans left the role of Steve Rogers in Avengers: Endgame, the Marvel Cinematic Universe turned to his colleague Sam Wilson, aka The Falcon…
Filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino has made, really, one kind of film for the majority of his career: decadent exercises in excess that observe the absurdity of…
“24 of your favorite stars in Nashville!” hollers the voiceover in the opening credits of Robert Altman’s consensus favorite and magnum opus. (We can ignore…
Universal Language is, at its core, a community portrait. Matthew Rankin’s second feature was co-written and imagined by friends and collaborators Pirouz Namati and Ila…