Review: Robert Smigel’s ‘The Week Of’
“Like an aging fighter that steps into the ring on short notice, Robert Smigel’s ‘The Week Of’ is overweight, unfocused and hungry for a paycheck.”
Review: Janus Metz’s ‘Borg vs McEnroe’
“‘Borg vs McEnroe’ loses momentum during its tennis sequences, but that’s just a minor complaint. Advantage LaBeouf.”
Tribeca Film Festival Review: Sebastián Lelio’s ‘Disobedience’
“Given the meticulousness Lelio affords to form in ‘Disobedience,’ there’s something a bit schematic about his characters.”
Tribeca Film Festival Review: Assia Boundaoui’s ‘The Feeling of Being Watched’
“Unlike many documentaries of its ilk, ‘The Feeling of Being Watched’ is not weighed down by doomsaying or sensationalism; instead, the picture it paints of community organization is genuinely hopeful.”
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.”
Tribeca Film Festival Review: Jason Reitman’s ‘Tully’
“There’s a calculated precision to both Reitman’s direction and Cody’s screenplay. The film is perfectly paced and cut, and moves with a rat-a-tat rhythm; the writing is sharp and specific, with a zinger in every other line.”
Review: Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson’s ‘Ghost Stories’
“Nyman and Dyson’s film is so full-bloodedly cinematic that it leaves one wondering how on earth they captured this on the stage.”
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.”
Las Palmas Film Festival Review: Guy Maddin’s ‘The Green Fog’
“Coherence is the last concern in ‘The Green Fog,’ whose beauty is comprised in the hidden connections between the city-film tropes.”
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.”
Las Palmas Film Festival Review: Vahid Jalilvand’s ‘No Date, No Signature’
“‘No Date, No Signature’ excels by subtly examining themes of integrity and moral duties.”
Las Palmas Film Festival Review: Ya-chuan Hsiao’s ‘Father to Son’
“The father’s strength lies in knowing when to ‘protect the heart by pretending to have no heart,’ and the moment when he chooses to do so is devastating.”
Review: John Krasinski’s ‘A Quiet Place’
“‘A Quiet Place’ masterfully builds tension, pays it off in unexpectedly satisfying ways and provokes genuine emotional investment in its characters with precious few traditional tools at its disposal.”
Review: Lynne Ramsay’s ‘You Were Never Really Here’
“Ramsay and Phoenix eloquently communicate the trappings of depression, and how it grips the sufferer.”
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.”
Review: Max Winkler’s ‘Flower’
“The story feints towards transgressive ideas but lacks the commitment for maximum impact.”