“My TCM Fest weekend, packed full of classic movies, was not only a fun experience in April 2024, but it made me feel hopeful that film preservation is alive and well, and that these beloved — if occasionally dusty — pictures aren’t going anywhere.”
“The spatial detail in ‘Five Deadly Venoms,’ aided by Chang’s sharp sense of timing, helped the film become a surprisingly labyrinthine vision of camaraderie in the face of corruption and power.”
“It’s a sense of Korean specificity that defines ‘Memories of Murder,’ which is still the best of Bong’s films.”
“In Alverson’s hands, anti-comedy becomes a new kind of gothic — it is the world viewed through a warped, sinister lens; a fresh excavation of the unspeakable through outsized comedic strategies.”
“‘Amores Perros’ is almost entirely disinterested in its central location. It feels like a film made not to speak truth to Mexican audiences, but to present a hyperreal version of Mexico for international audiences.”
“‘In Our Day’ shows that even a smaller Hong Sang-soo film, like the smaller moments of life that it portrays, can be just as rich with drama, sadness and beauty as any other, and that every fragment contains so much of the whole.”
“‘The End We Start From’ is a contained version of the violent, end-of-world tales we have grown accustomed to. In its quiet examination of a woman’s journey to motherhood, the questions that surround the subject are writ large on the story.”
“‘Case of the Naves Brothers’ is hardly in the annals of great Brazilian cinema, like the works of Rocha, but it absolutely deserves to be seen in the same breath.”
“Grief is a quiet but unrelenting presence within ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’ that gradually reveals itself the more viewers learn about the death of Mike Timlin, the protagonist’s friend and singing partner.”
“With its uneven pace and fragmented narrative, ‘Mean Streets’ would not have nearly the same impact without its soundtrack.”
“John Huston’s 1948 film ‘Key Largo’ is yet another classical Hollywood studio system film in which barely a single frame was shot on location.”
“‘Red Rooms’ provides a perfect recipe for isolation and alienation, encouraged by a media world around us that seeks only to capture attention and never thoughts.”
“In our attempt to fill in the gaps of the Oswald character, we recast him again and again, hoping that the latest iteration will reveal a previously hidden angle.”
“‘Detour’ plays like a fever dream powered by guilt and dread; an existential noir about an American male lost in the nothingness and vastness of the country.”
“In ‘Twilight,’ Fehér suggests, the force of authority truly loses its voice.”
“‘The Righteous Gemstones’ season 3 stays true to the constants that made me appreciate the show in the first place while adding more characters to love.”
“Here in the heart of Yoknapatawpha (Lafayette) County, I think about our favorite literary son, William Faulkner, during his time as a screenwriter in Hollywood and how he would feel about the current strike by members of the WGA.”
“‘Time and Tide’ seems to gaze both forward and backwards at once, its breaking down of editing structure creating a strange discombobulating effect.”
“The awareness of complicity in an institutional problem brings ‘The Fabelmans,’ ‘Babylon’ and ‘Empire of Light’ together.”
“Discordant, broken, berserk: ‘Branded to Kill’ refuses all direct relations with geography in its depiction of a career hitman on the verge of losing control.”