Review: Neil Marshall’s ‘The Reckoning’
“‘The Reckoning’ makes a sharp point about the complicity of women, or more accurately white women, in the destruction of other women.”
IFFR Review: Hung-I Chen and Muni Wei’s ‘As We Like It’
“‘As We Like It’ is a film that makes many unique moments out of its childish buffoonery, and it’s lifted, like its characters, into a class of its own.”
Review: Nora Unkel’s ‘A Nightmare Wakes’
“Making a gothic horror story about the creation of a gothic horror story is a worthy and potentially enlightening idea, but Unkel fumbles the ball at every turn with ‘A Nightmare Wakes.'”
Sundance Review: Rebecca Hall’s ‘Passing’
“‘Passing’ may be too ambiguous an experience for some, yet the way it reveals and conceals at the same time feels not just like a perfect encapsulation of its subject, but also underlines Hall’s emergence as a filmmaker to watch.”
Sundance Review: Ben Wheatley’s ‘In the Earth’
“The most surprising thing about ‘In the Earth’ may be just how much of a return it is to the pitch black humour that characterised Wheatley’s earliest films.”
IFFR Review: Anders Thomas Jensen’s ‘Riders of Justice’
“By the time ‘Riders of Justice’ ramps up its stakes, the final showdown hardly seems to matter as much as the gang’s presence.”
The Birth of Suzuki Action and Style: ‘Youth of the Beast’
“While Suzuki’s overly-stylized and sometimes incomprehensible films ultimately led to his termination from Nikkatsu in 1968, his legacy safely lives on in modern day Japanese cinema…”
Sundance Review: Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein’s ‘How It Ends’
“While ‘How It Ends’ acts as a cathartic experience for all of us still in the throes of the COVID-19 crisis, its character study will allow it to remain relevant once this pandemic is (hopefully) settled.”
Sundance Review: Jane Schoenbrun’s ‘We’re All Going to the World’s Fair’
“‘We’re All Going to the World’s Fair’ would’ve benefitted from leaning more into the ambiguous lines between documentation and constructed fiction, but it remains a fascinating fiction debut nevertheless.”
Sundance Review: Nattawut Poonpiriya’s ‘One for the Road’
“‘One for the Road’ feels like a filmmaker trying to capture another director’s voice to the extent that they lose their own in the process.”
Catching Fire: The Inscrutable Mayhem of Seijun Suzuki’s ‘Branded to Kill’
“‘Branded to Kill’ doesn’t flow, it staggers — it moves like a dying man, shot through the gut, bleeding out.”
Collecting Movies with Tucker Lucas
Greg Carlson Interviews Fargo Native Tucker Lucas About Movie Collecting
A Brief Symposium of Queer Life at the 2021 London Short Film Festival
Elle Haywood on Queer Cinema at the 2021 London Short Film Festival
Interview: Barely Civil Navigates a Disorienting Year
Andy Witchger Interviews Wisconsin Band Barely Civil
I Walk Alone: Seijun Suzuki Noir
“Occupying a middle space between the classicism of Japan’s most well-known filmmakers and the politically charged avant-garde of the New Wave, Suzuki uses the trappings of noir to explore the ramifications of isolation.”
The Borders of Film Noir: Genre in Takeshi Nomura’s ‘A Colt Is My Passport’
“‘A Colt Is My Passport’ represents a supreme tension between American and Japanese Noir, and asks questions about the past and future of international cinema.”
Review: Conor Allyn’s ‘No Man’s Land’
“‘No Man’s Land,’ Conor Allyn’s earthy effort at a serious revisionist western, is a film of good intentions that goes awry when it attempts to unpack any of its ideas.”
How Seijun Suzuki’s ‘Take Aim at the Police Van’ Subverts the Vigilante Subgenre
“A blueprint for Suzuki’s later masterpieces, ‘Take Aim at the Police Van’ is a solid cinematic vehicle full of suspense and surprises.”
The Last Yakuza in Tokyo: Masahiro Shinoda’s ‘Pale Flower’
“‘Pale Flower’ finds its own rhythm and mood, superimposing frictionless cool on tireless ennui, punctuating everyday boredom with an enigmatic tremble.”
I Love These Wicked Nights: On Masahiro Shinoda’s ‘Pale Flower’
“‘Pale Flower’ is a magnificently emblematic example of the stylization, self-consciousness and independent spirit that defined the Japanese New Wave.”