Cannes Film Festival Review: Pippa Bianco’s ‘Share’
“When everything aligns, ‘Share’ works brilliantly and feels like a true indie hit. Unfortunately, such moments are fleeting, and it ultimately feels like a glorified student film.”
Why We Look Up: Traveling Space and Time in ‘Apollo 11’ and ‘Minding the Gap’
“Through film, people can step outside the bounds of space and time to revisit the past, to see something old from a new vantage point.”
Looking Forward While Looking Back: The Recent Films of Francis Ford Coppola
“Coppola’s recent work is not a ‘return to form,’ whatever that means, but rather part of an ongoing exploration of what the form can do, showing an artist increasingly interested in only trying things he hasn’t done before.”
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.”
Album Review: Lust for Youth ‘Lust for Youth’
“Lust for Youth now have seven albums under their collective belts. It’s high time pop fans took notice and started giving them the attention they deserve.”
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.”
An Interview with ‘Somos Calentura: We Are The Heat’ Director Jorge Navas
‘We Are the Heat’: Pablo Staricco Cadenazzi interviews filmmaker Jorge Navas.
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.”
An Interview with ‘Take Me Somewhere Nice’ Director Ena Sendijarević
‘Take Me Somewhere Nice’: Pablo Staricco Cadenazzi interviews filmmaker Ena Sendijarević.
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.”