Not everything works in Sound of Violence, but its effective balancing act of authenticity and go-for-broke bonkers keeps things singing. Writer/director Alex Noyer intends the title…
The Dry perhaps ends too tidily, but it remains a welcomingly straightforward and visceral thriller that plays fair with its audience. Robert Connolly’s The Dry begins with…
Death Will Come is somewhat hampered by its abbreviated runtime and odd asides, but remains a moving document of love and living in the shadow of…
The French New Wave has long been the go-to introductory movement for burgeoning cinephiles. Unlike other, more loosely-defined national “waves,” it has reasonably delineated boundaries,…
Pablo Escoto’s All the Light We Can See comes with a bibliography in its end credits, a kind of road map to its poetically cryptic…
Sharrock’s middlebrow approach and sitcom-ready style undermines much of Limbo’s potential power. About a decade ago, Serge Daney’s then recently-translated essay “The Tracking Shot in…
About Endlessness is a gentler than usual work from Roy Andersson, one that reflects humanity’s ability to create both great beauty and profound suffering. Those complaining…
The County foregoes nuance of character and narrative in favor of a feel-good construction. I don’t know much about the history of the co-op farming…
Long considered a classic among grindhouse enthusiasts and video store dirtbags, Abel Ferrara’s Ms .45 has enjoyed a popular reappraisal in recent years. Its 2013…
Bloodthirsty is bland amalgam of werewolf flick signifiers and horror film clichés that do little to establish any unique voice. Reviewing Eight for Silver at…
Hopinka’s feature debut is a poetic and evocative film, one that seeks to quantify and articulate the symbiosis of humanity and earth. A prolific maker…
The Banishing is a welcome-back for director Christopher Smith, rendering fresh what could have been boilerplate, and keeping its human horrors palpably textual. It’s curious that…
Not all of the poetic evocations of Jessica Sarah Rinland’s Those That work, but it’s still a lively, playful, and niche document of art creation.…
Mauricio Franco Tosso’s Samichay, in Search of Happiness seeks to render the life of a peasant farmer on a grand, mythopoetic canvas, and it’s mostly…
Pitched somewhere between the bone-dry absurdism of Lucrecia Martel’s Zama and the minimalist drone of Lisandro Alonso’s Los Muertos, Diego Mondaca’s Chaco refashions the war…
The Power doesn’t hold a lot of mystery but thrives by situating its political and cultural critiques as blunt, horrific text. There’s something sinister lurking…
This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection is a remarkable debut, a tonally complex and visually sumptuous marvel. Existing in a kind of liminal…
The Unholy is a jump scare-centric, heavy-handed horror slog with little atmosphere and even less mystery. Keeping the good old-fashioned huckster spirit alive, Sony’s genre imprint…
Released in March of 1981, Michael Mann’s Thief is one of the great debut feature films, a fully-formed work that shows a young(ish) director firmly…
The Vault offers plenty of slick, heisty fun, but is hampered a bit by some unfortunate, charisma-sucking casting choices. Best known as the writer and director…