“To catch the eye of ‘Southland Tales’ is to look back on our past and future simultaneously, on the limitations of our technology and the humanity that screeches through it.”
“With ‘Ixcanul,’ Bustamante presents an honest and complex mother-daughter companionship that is sorely lacking in our current film and television landscape.”
“Just as with life, ‘Mulholland Dr.’ is unexplainable.”
“‘Ex Machina’ is not a projection of A.I. fear, but more of a preliminary intervention on the organized process of fearing and hating women.”
“The married couple’s conversation in ‘La Pointe Courte’ is a spellbinding predecessor to Richard Linklater’s ‘Before Trilogy’ and further proof that no great film needs ‘action’ to be great.”
“Like his characters, Demy’s camera in ‘Lola’ moves everywhere but goes nowhere; it’s a paradoxically headlong hesitation.”
“‘Get Out’ explores many notions: the duplicitous nature of liberal racism, the cumulative damage of microaggressions and appropriation, assimilation versus acculturation. But it’s the deer imagery that continue to elude audiences.”
“Fifty-three years after initial release, ‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg’ continues to be a formally and contextually innovative French New Wave production; a film that has influenced contemporary directors such as Barry Jenkins, Damien Chazelle and Joachim Trier.”
“I foresee that VR will eventually become a key asset of filmmaking, putting itself right alongside sound, color, digital and CGI as an essential staple of the industry.”
“Truffaut and Coutard punctuate ‘Shoot the Piano Player’ with a vibrant rendering of its wintry Parisian setting, where the city is an ever-present visual marker…”
“At a moment that calls for more inclusivity on all levels, the fact that we still have access to the Nicholas Brothers’ work is important.”
“Rohmer cares more about posing questions than providing the comfort of a conclusion.”
Marshall Shaffer Reflects on a Full Month of FilmStruck
“‘Contempt’ is a daunting and formally labyrinthine work, calling its own fallibility to question even as it submits completely to the romance of cinema.”
“As a ‘purely experimental film,’ ‘Voyage of Time’ is ultimately an extreme, sensory experience.”
“If ever a soul was captured on camera, this is it.”
“Park demonstrates how the complicated relationship between role-play, desire, secrecy, power and revenge prove ripe for darkly comic (and perverse) fodder.”
Alejandra Rosenberg Interviews Richard Peña
“‘Toni Erdmann’ understands what’s at stake: not the private destiny of an individual, but her ongoing relationship to her era.”
“Movies aren’t neutral vessels that we can stuff with our cultural baggage.”
