A Stirring Tale of Friendship: Kelly Reichardt’s ‘First Cow’
“Behold the elegance and oft-cited aesthetic minimalism with which Reichardt unfolds so many thoughts and ideas about race, representation and gender.”
Review: Aaron Schneider’s ‘Greyhound’
“Greyhound’s inability to venture further into the depths of wartime psychology leaves it susceptible to being forgotten just as quickly as it emerged.”
Album Review: Julianna Barwick ‘Healing Is a Miracle’
“‘Healing Is a Miracle’ represents an opportunity for pause, stillness and reflection.”
The Disaster Area: From ‘Airport’ to ‘Airplane!’ – Part Four
Part Four of a Four-Part Disaster Movie Series by Bill Bria
Review: Natalie Erika James’ ‘Relic’
“James’ arresting, emotional and attention-grabbing film understands that what’s most frightening is barely glimpsed and feels disarmingly normal.”
Understanding Nobuhiko Ōbayashi: From ‘House’ to ‘Hanagatami’
“No director has been able to replicate Nobuhiko Ōbayashi’s iridescent, hallucinatory and infectious passion for film.”
‘But I’m a Cheerleader’: Celebrating 20 Years of Style and Sincerity
“In cinema, it’s tough to depict sincerity without it coming across as contrived or sickly-sweet, but it’s a feeling that myself and many others yearn for, especially when it comes together as beautifully as it does in ‘But I’m a Cheerleader.'”
Review: Jeffrey A. Brown’s ‘The Beach House’
“‘The Beach House’ signals an exciting new star in horror.”
Review: Spike Jonze’s ‘Beastie Boys Story’
“If you listen to Beastie Boys, Jonze’s technique — a familiar blend of rough and smooth, high tech and low tech — comes correct. If you don’t listen to Beastie Boys, the movie serves as a biographical and musical introduction.”
Formative: Prince ‘Purple Rain’ (1984)
“The affinity I have for Prince, and the things that I learned from his music — and continue to learn — is different than what my mum took away from it decades earlier; the music, and the connection we share with it, is something I find myself returning to regularly.”
Formative: Love and Rockets ‘Express’ (1986)
“‘Express’ felt like music that was made FOR ME — not my parents, and certainly not the other teenagers I knew who liked music that seemed boring and soulless.”
EP Review: Twin Peaks ‘Side A’
“The strength of ‘Side A’ is the acceptance of its limitations — now is perhaps not the time for rock bands to reinvent the wheel, but instead to provide some kind of solace, support or guidance.”
Review: Boaz Yakin’s ‘Aviva’
“Aviva and Eden’s dances — together and apart — mobilize Yakin’s film, and function as bodily mirrors and emotional mirages; gain and loss, self and love.”
Review: Shannon Murphy’s ‘Babyteeth’
“Much of Babyteeth’s vitality can be located in the way each of the central characters is so fully realized.”
Mythic Conduits for Intimate Pain in Edgar G. Ulmer’s ‘The Black Cat’
“While ‘The Black Cat’ does not share many explicit connections with Poe’s 1843 story, both texts use archetypal symbolism to explore painfully intimate experiences (in Poe’s case, addiction and mental disarray, and in Ulmer’s case, psychological trauma).”
Review: Ina Weisse’s ‘The Audition’
“‘The Audition’ considers how we navigate the middle space between power and powerlessness, and Hoss’ performance, whether she’s yearning for affection or responsible for staggering brutality, is the film’s greatest asset.”
Escape to Paradise: The Unusual Sweetness of ‘Carlito’s Way’
“What both Pacino and De Palma vividly convey throughout the film is that there’s absolutely nothing dubious or spurious about Carlito’s conviction in his ability to evolve.”
Album Review: Arca ‘KiCk i’
“Taken as a whole, ‘KiCk i’ is a delirious tour-de-force, a compilation of experiments that don’t fully cohere but still build up to an intriguing final image.”
From ‘Sex’ to ‘Girls’ to ‘Insecure’: HBO’s Feminist and Intersectional Chronicle
“HBO has come a long way in representing the intersectionality of race and gender.”
Why Criticism: Against Nostalgia
“More than ever, it is crucial to contemplate what this nostalgia phenomenon means for the future of the arts and our discomfort with the new. Will there be a ‘new’ in the new world?”