Scrappily-Assembled Star Wars: ‘Solo’ Is Safe Galactic Fun
“The film is not without heart, though its heart exists in scattered fragments without assimilating into a cohesive whole.”
The Transcendent Banality of ‘Joe Pera Talks with You’
“In its absence of cynicism and surface mundanity, ‘Joe Pera Talks with You’ presents a conceit that feels genuinely daring in the context of a comic universe which prides itself on provocative fare from the likes of Tim and Eric, Dave Willis and Eric Andre.”
Vague Visages Is FilmStruck: Alexander Mackendrick’s ‘Sweet Smell of Success’
“‘Sweet Smell of Success’ seems to exist somewhere beyond auteurist canonization or even the traditional Hollywood studio stock.”
The Inside Is Now the Outside: Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s ‘Cure’
“Memory and identity are inextricably linked.”
On Familiar Ground: Paul Schrader and the Death Impulse
Michael J. Casey on Paul Schrader’s thematic links in ‘Taxi Driver,’ ‘Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters’ and ‘First Reformed’
‘Bullitt’ at 50: On Peter Yates’ Mastery of Visual Storytelling
“Yates delivers the message that our chosen professions and work environments define who we really are. One cannot successfully live a dual existence. Love requires the joining of oneself to another person as well as that person’s job.”
Walking Contradiction: The Double Life of Cisco Pike
“‘Cisco Pike’ is a meditation on failure at all levels; defeat was in the air and no stratum of society was exempt.”
An Indictment of the Responsible Adult: Ruben Östlund’s ‘The Square’
“This isn’t simple hypocrisy. It’s a reversal of expected roles. Children in ‘The Square’ are equated with a moral courage that has been stripped from the film’s adults.”
The Journey of Evolution and Liberation in ‘Disobedience’
“Through its moving journey of evolution, truth and desire, ‘Disobedience’ displays that liberation makes life richer, and that it’s necessary to feel truly alive.”
Vague Visages Is FilmStruck: Stefen Styrsky on John Huston’s ‘Reflections in a Golden Eye’
“Lending the story a rarefied patina is the cinematography.”
A Community in the Dark: Dispatches from the TCM Classic Film Festival
Michael J. Casey on the TCM Classic Film Festival 2018
Overview: Tribeca Film Festival 2018
Devika Girish on Her First Tribeca Film Festival Experience
Inherited Trauma and Jewish Themes in ‘Ghost Stories’
“Finally facing the ghost actually releases the tension. And so, it is only by facing a trauma like the Holocaust that future generations can begin to relieve its effects.”
Calendars, Storms and Coming Home: Rituparno Ghosh’s ‘Unishe April’
“To understand Ghosh’s cinema, it is important to understand the director’s gradual but persevering separation from gender binaries and roles.”
Loneliness and the Romance of Death: On Alain Guiraudie’s ‘Stranger by the Lake’
“In us all lurks a potential Franck — desperate for intimacy, willing to risk oblivion for a moment’s embrace.”
Escapism in Dark Places: How ‘Allure’ Accurately Captures Despair
“Carlos and Jason Sanchez’s ‘Allure’ might be one of the most beautifully distressing movies of the past year.”
Portraits of Women in Film Noir
“Film noir is all about questioning assumptions, and several of such films that feature portraits of women do nothing less.”
Seeing the Giallo Truth in Dario Argento’s ‘Four Flies on Grey Velvet’
“One of the great characteristics of ‘Four Flies on Grey Velvet’ and numerous other giallo films is their willingness to destabilize traditional notions of subjectivity.”
Parody of Power: Benny and Josh Safdie’s ‘Good Time’
“By exposing the falsehood of one’s presumption of power, the Safdies awaken viewers to the inescapable consequences of their actions and weaknesses, along with the vulnerability of their own fate.”
Living in the Model: The Comforts and Constrictions of Civilized Society in Tim Burton’s ‘Beetlejuice’
“Indeed, in a film that so gleefully satirizes and undermines any attempts to impose order on existence, Betelgeuse can be regarded as a subversive savior for the families of Ronald Reagan’s America as much as a harbinger of destruction.”