Looking Back at Steven Soderbergh’s ‘sex, lies, and videotape’
“Despite its salacious subject matter — sexuality, infidelity and voyeurism — the movie contains shockingly few sex scenes, but still remains erotically charged nearly 30 years later.”
Empathy Through Voyeurism: ‘Bad Times at the El Royale’ Review
“Goddard delineates his film from its influences by focusing almost exclusively on character. Rather than a story filled with twists and turns and manipulation of the audience, ‘Bad Times at the El Royale’ presents each character’s story as a solo vignette, before tying it into the overarching drama.”
Sensual Synths and Death Drones: Listening to ‘It Follows’
“The quickening tempo of non-diegetic, alienating sounds should not be simply viewed as part of a film score, but as an access point into the fear-induced perspectives of the victims within this film world.”
Someone Else’s War: A Reckoning with Clint Eastwood’s ‘American Sniper’
“Movies aren’t proverbs — their morals are questionable, their questions are impossible to answer. This is the case for good films, at least.”
Eli Roth Replaces Trademark Irreverence with Quiet Reverence for ‘The House with a Clock in Its Walls’
“Ultimately, it seems that the film’s pleasant and inoffensive affect is exactly what Roth intends. The work is unassuming, competently handled and ably colored within its established lines. It aims clearly and unwaveringly to please a young target audience.”
VV Shudder Selects: Using the Camera to Confront the Male Gaze in ‘Revenge’
“Fargeat is almost saying, ‘well, if you want to look at her, you must look at her no matter her condition.’ It is a grotesque way of calling out the male gaze, but it is an effective one.”
Vague Visages Is FilmStruck: Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ‘El Topo’
“Jodorowsky’s film is a potpourri of consecrated iconography and symbolism, providing ‘El Topo’ a breadth of sacred resonance and no doubt augmenting its potential for provocation and interpretation.”
Outside the Frame: On ‘Hale County This Morning, This Evening’
“‘Hale County This Morning, This Evening’ is a cinema of living and breathing freedom: a poetry in light and sound that is bridling at the constraints of the very documentary form itself.”
Preview: Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2018
Leslie Hatton Previews the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2018
Blowback: Peter Berg’s ‘Mile 22’
“Blowback occurs when policymakers fail to take into account the far-reaching ramifications of their actions.”
TIFF 2018: Like the Hope of Rain After a Long Summer – A Review of John Butler’s ‘Papi Chulo’
“Apart from fantastic performances from its cast, especially Bomer and Patiño, Papi Chulo’s biggest strength is the subtlety and grace with which it deals with the wide cross-section of issues it touches upon.”
TIFF 2018: One Small Step – A Review of Damien Chazelle’s ‘First Man’
“What ‘First Man’ might lack in emotionality, Chazelle more than compensates for in spectacle.”
TIFF 2018: Embracing the Oxymoronic – A Review of Jacques Audiard’s ‘The Sisters Brothers’
“Audiard finds the real drama of the film in how the seemingly boundless promise of the land collides with the very real limitations of the human imagination and body.”
TIFF 2018: The Never-Ending Ruminations of Olivier Assayas – A Review of ‘Non-Fiction’
“For a film about an eternal conflict, ‘Non-Fiction’ is a strangely calming film. It quietly assures you that while a fight for permanence is natural, the need to change is also equally natural.”
Film Noir Without the Femme Fatale: André De Toth’s ‘Pitfall’ and ‘Crime Wave’
“In ‘Pitfall’ and ‘Crime Wave,’ two seminal films bookending the classic noir cycle, director André De Toth develops a more nuanced view of marriage and the married couple.”
Baby and The Driver: Motion, Music and Meaning
“‘Baby Driver’ and ‘Drive’ are not road maps to modernity, they don’t offer any route through it that guarantees a safe arrival. The only advice they might offer is to tear up the map itself. To simply drive.”
Welcome to the War: Power Politics in the ‘Predator’ Franchise
“The ‘Predator’ franchise is a repository of the fears that plague the powerful. The context changes, but the fear persists — the fear that the conqueror may one day become the conquered.”
‘What Keeps You Alive’: A Gorgeous, Blood-Pumping Rumination on Betrayal
“Minihan’s tale is a moody, memorable work of art that dares its audience to meditate on the layers and anxieties of love and deceit.”
Wading Through the Western Expanse: The Myth-Busting Power of Andrew Haigh’s ‘Lean on Pete’
“‘Lean on Pete’ isn’t for me. It isn’t about me. But I needed it to wade through all the stories I’d ever heard that were supposed to be for me and about me.”
A Matter of Style: Yasujirō Ozu Covers ‘Christopher Robin’
Michael J. Casey Imagines ‘Christopher Robin’ in the Style of Yasujirō Ozu