In 2002, Olivier Assayas’ Demonlover premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival to a storm of controversy, eclipsed — for better or worse…
It’s an awkward phase, that post-graduation purgatory where possibilities seem endless, endlessly limited, or both — or so I’m told, I never went to…
An angry young girl runs away, leaving behind an affluent but troubled home life to throw in her lot with unsupervised older teenagers and…
Belgian-Congolese rapper Baloji’s feature directorial debut, Omen, is a promising if not confident fable. Koffi (Mark Zinga) and Alice (Lucie Debay) return home to…
Hollywood film scholar Thomas Schatz’s essay “Film Genre and the Genre Film” describes our relationship with the film genre as both static and dynamic.…
Much like Helena Wittmann’s first feature, Drift — whose audaciously hypnotic visuals and elliptical narrative heralded a major directorial presence — Anthony Chen’s third…
An easy bit of advice to give to any filmmaker who tries, whether with journalistic integrity or well-meaning folksy soapboxery, to make a film…
A sobering reminder of the minefield the Internet can be for women, the documentary Another Body, from filmmakers Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn, is…
The future is forever in Divinity, Eddie Alcazar’s sci-fi experiment-cum-sophomore feature. Building on his first project’s purgatorial claustrophobia, and the technical feats of his…
For those who’ve ever lit a doobie and stared at Pink Floyd’s cover art with glazed eyes, wondering what it all means, man, rejoice:…
Meet Me in the Bathroom’s winnowed focus turns what could have been a vibrant behind-the-scenes doc into more conventional, surface-skimming fare. Meet Me in…
Holy Spider fails to execute the tonal mastery needed for its material and is too self-conscious to occupy any pulpier territory. For approximately one year…
Sharp Stick is a more specific work than much of what Denham has produced in the last decade, but it’s hindered by an awkward, shaggy…
Freakscene is worth a watch for completists, but anyone looking for a more comprehensive, well-structured deep-dive would do well to look elsewhere. Legendary indie…
Inbetween Girl manages to avoid the tepid dramatics of so many teen-screen films, but too often succumbs to bouts of preciousness and self-conscious affectation. The…
Vortex is as viscerally bracing as Noe’s previous efforts, but here also cut through with a new, impressive level of restraint. It’s become somewhat…
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is a bold, terrifying portrait of the Internet’s isolation/connection dichotomy. There’s something bracing about encountering a genuine oddity…
Adventures in Success delivers some light laughs, but does little else of note with its outlandish premise. Adventures in Success follows a would-be cult, led…