Review: Joe Talbot’s ‘The Last Black Man in San Francisco’
“‘The Last Black Man in San Francisco’ soars, stretching gull wings as a poetic lament articulating longing and loss recognizable and accessible to all.”
The Western Enters the 70s – Part 1: Sam Peckinpah’s Lonely Cowboy
“With his concern for the outsider, and his reorienting of the West’s perception in the American mind, Peckinpah helped to birth the Acid Western.”
Shattering Orientalism Through Noir: Samuel Fuller’s ‘House of Bamboo’
“The gritty and hard-nosed film noir genre is rife with actors and directors that helped to not only change conversations about American cinema, but also the nation’s consciousness.”
The Monsters Are Loose: Grief and Regret in A.T. White’s ‘Starfish’
“Many ‘Starfish’ reviews pick up on the film’s unmistakable exploration of grief, but just as many neglect to mention the other half of White’s semi-autobiographical work and its reckoning with guilt and regret.”
Sundance London Review: Patrick Brice’s ‘Corporate Animals’
“Brice and company get too tied up in the character comedy for ‘Corporate Animals’ to work as a satire, and the televisual filmmaking isn’t helped by a plotline that could have been a single episode of ‘The Office.'”
Sundance London Review: Jennifer Kent’s ‘The Nightingale’
“‘The Nightingale’ is a rich and vivid work from a director whose bold vision accounts for its brutality.”
Eat Meat / Man, Woman: Bhaskar Hazarika’s ‘Aamis’
“Hazarika’s is a voice that comes from outside of the Bollywood canon and reverberates sharp and hard throughout the cinemascape of the country. May it grow only louder.”
La Semaine de la Critique Review: Valentina Maurel’s ‘Lucia en el limbo’
“Maurel allows Arenas’ body language to speak for her, rather than relying upon cliché teenage dialogue found in many Hollywood films.”
Forty Years of Facehugging and Chestbursting: ‘Memory: The Origins of Alien’
“‘Alien’ is a gift that keeps on giving, and ‘Memory: The Origins of Alien’ unwraps so many colorfully wrapped boxes of various shapes and sizes.”
Once Upon a Time in Tarantinoland: ‘Kill Bill’ Is a Visually Explosive Love Letter to Cinema
“All in all, ‘the 4th film by Quentin Tarantino’ is a wild, eclectic action movie with visual flair, great performances and personality up the wazoo.”
La Semaine de la Critique Review: Moin Hussain’s ‘Naptha’
“Moin Hussain’s ‘Naptha’ is a classic, compact portrait of a strained father-son relationship that addresses the angst of aging and the pain that familial relationships can bring.”
Cannes Film Festival Review: Robert Eggers’ ‘The Lighthouse’
“Eggers is persistent in never revealing his hand, but I’ve got a hunch he’s hiding a royal flush.”
Review: Praveen Morchhale’s ‘Widow of Silence’
“Widow of Silence’s characters communicate little because the core of human existence is on the verge of death. It’s the humanization of the unfamiliar that makes the characters feel so exceptionally real, and viewers will likely see parts of themselves on screen.”
Olivia Wilde Makes Confident Directorial Debut with ‘Booksmart’
“You don’t have to be a queer teenage activist to relate to Amy, but imagine what ‘Booksmart’ might mean to those who have not seen themselves regularly represented on the mainstream screen.”
Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien’ Is a 40-Year-Old Elevated Horror Masterpiece
“If ‘Alien’ came out today, it’d likely be hailed as some sort of genius elevated horror/prestige sci-fi movie. It’s an engrossing, pulse-pounding thriller with brains and a unique and stunning visual style. Forty years later, ‘Alien’ remains one of the best sci-fi AND horror films of all time.”
India’s 25-Year Absence from Cannes’ Official Selection and the Eurocentrism of Film Culture
“Imagine the largest film-producing nation in the world. Now imagine that nation, with more than one 100 years of film history and a global audience in the billions, being conspicuously absent from the single most prestigious and prominent film festival in the world.”
Review: FINT’s ‘Fonotune: An Electric Fairytale’
“‘Fonotune: An Electric Fairytale’ can’t escape feeling like a zany music video concept, lacking the energy or plot to sustain a feature.”
Review: Ry Russo-Young’s ‘The Sun Is Also a Star’
“Despite entertaining directorial flourishes often accompanied by striking stock footage cutaways — from Carl Sagan to a history lesson on Black hair care products — Russo-Young can’t set her hooks into much beyond the postcard images of the Big Apple.”
Review: Chad Stahelski’s ‘John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum’
“As a whole, ‘John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum’ is a fun romp and continues the Greek/pulp mythology set up in ‘John Wick: Chapter 2.’ In future installments, Stahelski might want to tone down the campiness, otherwise the series will lunge into self-parody.”
Indulgent Food and Ephemeral Connections in ‘Chungking Express’
“Food, particularly junk food, plays a large role in ‘Chungking Express’ by signifying the type of sweet but ultimately fleeting connections (and self-doubt) that occur so frequently for the characters in the bustling Chungking Mansions.”