Review: Midge Costin’s ‘Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound’
“‘Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound’ often turns its ears to previously unheard nooks and crannies that will light a fire in the next generation of world-class film artists.”
Why Criticism: The Race to Problematize Bittersweet Horror Endings
“In order to fully engage with horror films, it’s important to look at the monster and the world that’s being upended by that monster.”
Review: Hirokazu Kore-eda’s ‘The Truth’
“‘The Truth’ is best viewed as a watered down (but often quite enjoyable) riff on many of Assayas’ recurrent thematic obsessions.”
Glasgow Film Festival Review: Nick Rowland’s ‘Calm with Horses’
“Rowland’s direction throughout is clean and deliberate, rarely showy. He evokes the kind of barren small town where there is almost nothing to fight over, although some still find a way. There’s a bleakness to all of it, a greyness.”
Review: Numa Perrier’s ‘Jezebel’
“‘Jezebel’ is a rallying cry for all black girls trying to figure out who they see in the mirror and on the screen.”
Glasgow Film Festival Review: Jung Da-won’s ‘Miss & Mrs. Cops’
“‘Miss & Mrs. Cops’ is a genuinely light-hearted movie which never strays into the emotional register of real life or real pain.”
Glasgow Film Festival Review: Régis Roinsard’s ‘Les traducteurs’
“Roinsard is so preoccupied with setting up the next twist that ‘Les traducteurs’ does little to establish why viewers should care.”
Review: ‘Dark Whispers: Volume 1’
“The problem with ‘Dark Whispers: Volume 1’ is the same as with any horror anthology — the stories are only as good as what’s come before.”
Berlinale 2020 Review: Abel Ferrara’s ‘Siberia’
“Ferrara throws everything at ‘Siberia,’ turning it into a playground for emotive relation. But it is Dafoe, his muse, who so thoroughly brings the audience along with the randomness…”
Berlinale 2020 Review: Kelly Reichardt’s ‘First Cow’
“Reichardt’s story has the mythic quality of a fable, but refrains from moralising or casting judgement on the misdeeds and mistakes of its characters.”
Review: Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz’s ‘The Lodge’
“Franz and Fiala scale down Kubrick’s more expansive vision, and the result offers its own kind of skin-crawling satisfaction.”
That Sweet Smell of Success: On Bruno de Almeida’s ‘Cabaret Maxime’
“By addressing the dark realities of show business, ‘Cabaret Maxime’ spotlights the beauty of unconditional artistic love – for an individual creative pursuit, and for a shared belief system amongst peers.”
Why Criticism: The One-Inch Tall Barrier of Foreign Cinema
“Tucked in our so-called privileged positions, we need to not only hold tight but also need to learn when to engage and when to let things go.”
On the Calamity of Life: Angela Schanelec’s ‘I Was at Home, But’
“A film like ‘I Was at Home, But’ tests its audience and never tells them if they’re right, and therein lies the challenge. The point is not to “get” the film but to have thought about it and come up with a whole array of personal truths.”
Review: Joe Begos’ ‘VFW’
“A thrilling, gloriously gory and gleefully simple exercise in cyberpunk nastiness, led by a crew of done-with-this-shit action movie icons, ‘VFW’ is a relentlessly entertaining riot.”
Don’t Make Him Wait: Editing, Thelma Schoonmaker and ‘The Irishman’
“Schoonmaker’s contribution to ‘The Irishman’ may be her finest effort: she shapes an epic that masterfully controls pace — accelerating and decelerating it at will…”
Leopards in Winter: ‘The Irishman’ and the Banquet Sequence
“‘The Irishman’ may be the last film of an era. The banquet scene ranks among the most powerful sequences of Scorsese’s career because he allows it, following Visconti’s example, to linger.”
IFFR 2020 Review: Isamu Hirabayashi’s ‘Shell and Joint’
“‘Shell and Joint’ thrives in being carefully discovered by peeling away one layer after the other.”
IFFR 2020 Review: Oda Kaori’s ‘Cenote’
“By seemingly stripping the sacredness from the cenotes, and forcing the sinkholes to be penetrated by the eye of the camera, Oda appears to deconstruct the documentary’s premise: there’s no mystery to unearth…”
Review: Chinonye Chukwu’s ‘Clemency’
“Chukwu avoids any overt didacticism in her storytelling, even if the mounting pressure on the beleaguered protagonist is delivered with quiet resolve and suffocating dread.”