Review: Onur Tukel’s ‘Catfight’
“What ‘Catfight’ lacks in sanity, it makes up for in the sheer exuberance of Sandra Oh and Anne Heche.”
True/False 2017 Review: Yance Ford’s ‘Strong Island’
“‘Strong Island’ is a vulnerable, affecting documentary that illustrates what systemic racism looks like on a personal level.”
True/False 2017 Review: Kitty Green’s ‘Casting JonBenet’
“The editing is where the story of Casting JonBenet is truly built.”
True/False 2017 Review: Theo Anthony’s ‘Rat Film’
“‘Rat Film’ doesn’t spell out its conclusions, instead allowing the viewer to come to their own upon seeing the images and stories it presents.”
Éric Rohmer’s Battle of the Sexes
“Rohmer cares more about posing questions than providing the comfort of a conclusion.”
Vague Visages Is FilmStruck: Marshall Shaffer’s #FilmStruckFebruary
Marshall Shaffer Reflects on a Full Month of FilmStruck
The Aesthetic and Formal Challenges of Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Contempt’
“‘Contempt’ is a daunting and formally labyrinthine work, calling its own fallibility to question even as it submits completely to the romance of cinema.”
The Wonder of Cinema and Living in ‘Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey’
“As a ‘purely experimental film,’ ‘Voyage of Time’ is ultimately an extreme, sensory experience.”
Behind the Curtain in ‘David Lynch – The Art Life’
“If ever a soul was captured on camera, this is it.”
‘The Handmaiden’: A Sensuous, Sumptuous Tale of Secrecy, Sex and Subversion
“Park demonstrates how the complicated relationship between role-play, desire, secrecy, power and revenge prove ripe for darkly comic (and perverse) fodder.”
Coffee and Cinephilia: A Conversation with Richard Peña
Alejandra Rosenberg Interviews Richard Peña
Album Review: Ryan Adams ‘Prisoner’
“The songs on ‘Prisoner’ seem shackled to the chains of (unrequited) love.”
Landscape of Awkwardness: On Maren Ade’s ‘Toni Erdmann’
“‘Toni Erdmann’ understands what’s at stake: not the private destiny of an individual, but her ongoing relationship to her era.”
Two Violences: ‘Shield for Murder’
“Movies aren’t neutral vessels that we can stuff with our cultural baggage.”
Vague Visages Is FilmStruck: Jeremy Carr on Yasujirô Ozu’s ‘I Was Born, But…’
“If Ozu has taught us anything, it’s that life doesn’t get any easier. But life does go on.”
‘Common as Light and Love Are Red Valleys of Blood’: Some Thoughts from a Mark Kozelek Fan
“Kozelek is present, combative and always original. He forces you to listen to his music on its own terms.”
Album Review: The Raveonettes ‘2016 Atomized’
“‘2016 Atomized’ is an apt title for an album full of songs that are obsessed with nuclear and romantic annihilation, each track a finely distilled blast of musical essence from The Raveonettes’ particularly heady bouquet.”
Review: Pema Tseden’s ‘Tharlo’
“Pema Tseden’s all-Tibetan film is a confrontation of old and new, of solitude and togetherness, of dreams and reality.”
Looking Back and Forward: Mike Thorn and Anya Stanley on the ‘Halloween’ Franchise
Mike Thorn and A.M. Novak discuss the ‘Halloween’ franchise.
When the Male Gaze Breaks: Between ‘The Neon Demon’ and ‘Black Swan’
“In Darren Aronofsky’s ‘Black Swan’ and Nicolas Winding Refn’s ‘The Neon Demon,’ the female body is used in its most delicate and presumptuously feminine form.”