Review: Ben Hozie’s ‘PVT Chat’
“In ‘PVT Chat,’ the half-baked attempts to create thematic through lines and symbolism prove to be the greatest flaws.”
Review: Predrag Antonijevic’s ‘Dara of Jasenovac’
“Given that ‘Dara of Jasenovac’ is the first Serbian film to cover the camps, the implicit didacticism would actually be more welcomed if it did its job and taught viewers something.”
Review: Rose Glass’ ‘Saint Maud’
“‘Saint Maud’ proves, once again, that horror, and particularly indie horror, provides the opportunity for first timers to take real risks.”
Sundance Review: Jakub Piatek’s ‘Prime Time’
“‘Prime Time’ is at its most energetic and engaging during the early scenes; a setup familiar enough for any viewer of Sidney Lumet’s ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ or the many films he inspired.”
Sundance Review: Robin Wright’s ‘Land’
“‘Land’ is positioned as an exploration of grief and survivor’s guilt — a crowded celluloid space – but the lack of distinctive figures renders Wright’s film picturesque but fallow.”
Göteborg Film Festival Review: Zaida Bergroth’s ‘Tove’
“‘Tove’ is a tribute to all creatives who pursue their passion projects, and applauds those who are able to break free from bindings.”
Sundance Review: Karen Cinorre’s ‘Mayday’
“‘Mayday’ is the filmic equivalent of an answer to a distress call, letting those in need simply know that it’s there.”
Sundance 2021 Review: Pascual Sisto’s ‘John and the Hole’
“‘John and the Hole’ may be too frustratingly vague to really connect, but it seems to challenge its audience from a place of urgency…”
Review: Neil Marshall’s ‘The Reckoning’
“‘The Reckoning’ makes a sharp point about the complicity of women, or more accurately white women, in the destruction of other women.”
IFFR Review: Hung-I Chen and Muni Wei’s ‘As We Like It’
“‘As We Like It’ is a film that makes many unique moments out of its childish buffoonery, and it’s lifted, like its characters, into a class of its own.”
Review: Nora Unkel’s ‘A Nightmare Wakes’
“Making a gothic horror story about the creation of a gothic horror story is a worthy and potentially enlightening idea, but Unkel fumbles the ball at every turn with ‘A Nightmare Wakes.'”
Sundance Review: Rebecca Hall’s ‘Passing’
“‘Passing’ may be too ambiguous an experience for some, yet the way it reveals and conceals at the same time feels not just like a perfect encapsulation of its subject, but also underlines Hall’s emergence as a filmmaker to watch.”
IFFR Review: Anders Thomas Jensen’s ‘Riders of Justice’
“By the time ‘Riders of Justice’ ramps up its stakes, the final showdown hardly seems to matter as much as the gang’s presence.”
Sundance Review: Jane Schoenbrun’s ‘We’re All Going to the World’s Fair’
“‘We’re All Going to the World’s Fair’ would’ve benefitted from leaning more into the ambiguous lines between documentation and constructed fiction, but it remains a fascinating fiction debut nevertheless.”
Sundance Review: Nattawut Poonpiriya’s ‘One for the Road’
“‘One for the Road’ feels like a filmmaker trying to capture another director’s voice to the extent that they lose their own in the process.”
Catching Fire: The Inscrutable Mayhem of Seijun Suzuki’s ‘Branded to Kill’
“‘Branded to Kill’ doesn’t flow, it staggers — it moves like a dying man, shot through the gut, bleeding out.”
I Walk Alone: Seijun Suzuki Noir
“Occupying a middle space between the classicism of Japan’s most well-known filmmakers and the politically charged avant-garde of the New Wave, Suzuki uses the trappings of noir to explore the ramifications of isolation.”
Lost: Akira Kurosawa Noir
“In Kurosawa’s noir films, characters struggle to move beyond loss — personal, financial and national — only to find that more loss awaits them.”
Kantemir Balagov’s ‘Beanpole’ Makes Oscar Shortlist
“‘Beanpole’ masters the unseen, the unspoken and the ‘presence of absence’ in the way it unpacks the toll of ongoing armed conflict through a kind of metonymic expression of experience.”
Review: Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s ‘Synchronic’
“Benson and Moorhead’s typically dark, cynical tone is well-suited to the material until a too-neat ending tries to retcon ‘Synchronic’ into something else in the most jarring way possible.”