“Cable Hogue ogles and desires Hildy because she appeals to him sexually: there are no shades of grey here, no self-reflection. In the world of Peckinpah, sex is often just sex.”
“‘Black Orpheus’ embraces sex as multiplicitous. This somehow makes the love more noble, because it is not confused with lust, and sex becomes a celebration rather than a symbol of it.”
“After my first viewing of ‘Vivre sa vie,’ I closed my laptop, went out and chopped my waist-length mane to a bob. Movies have always had that mysterious power of making me feel as if I have lived all the lives I see on-screen.”
“Throughout ‘Opening Night,’ reality and make-believe are interwoven into a mass of chaos.”
“A somewhat uneven protest of English nobility and a denouncement of nepotic privilege, The Riot Club’s message is a redundant one: unchecked, inherited wealth leads to problems.”
“‘Bug’ closes in on you in a curiously suffocating way. It’s disorienting in the best way possible.”
“The horror reads as a treatise against a dominant culture that upholds rather old-fashioned ideas of gender…”
“Babbit recognizes that the characters in question have a difficult choice to make: to subscribe to a dominant culture and survive or to ‘be themselves’ and ostensibly be shunned.”
“Critics have labeled ‘Heartbeats’ as derivative and pretentious, flamboyant and bratty, but it’s exactly the kind of film where such criticism means that it’s doing its job.”
“The complexities of ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ are worthy of their own analysis, but the film’s simplicities and stark honesty about emotion are its strengths.”
“If you have an ounce of capitalist discomfort, ‘La cérémonie’ will surely begin to boil your blood, and that’s where things get interesting.”
“‘Les biches’ remains one of the more elusive and symbolic films of Chabrol’s career, as the narrative adopts a dreamlike structure that often obscures reality and truth.”
“‘Les bonnes femmes’ pushes the boundaries of expectations, leaving the audience in a place of vulnerability.”
“Youth is central to ‘Violette,’ and Isabelle Huppert’s petite frame and almost childlike features lend the film a skewed point of view that is colored neither by experience or shame.”
“Surprisingly, director Stearns spends little time navigating the physical world of ‘Faults’; he takes a minimalist approach and produces a game of psychological chess.”
“‘Gurov and Anna’ toys with perceptions and ultimately gives into both cynicism and brutality. While not for the faint of heart, Ouellet’s film offers a pointed portrait of obsession and ego…”
“‘The Bride Wore Black’ has a rather deft sense of humor that raises it above many of the other brightly-lit neo-noirs of the 1960s.”
“It is incredible to think that Malle was only 25 years old when he made ‘The Lovers,’ as it seems to hold the wisdom and erotic impulses of a much older man.”
“A feeling of powerlessness is no doubt at the heart of Moreau’s possessed performance in ‘Elevator to the Gallows.'”
“A sex comedy rooted in inequality, ‘Diary of a Chambermaid’ trades in traditional ideas about power dynamics for a twisted take on the absurdity of desire.”