Review: Eli Roth’s ‘Ice Cream Man’
“Eli Roth’s exercises in bad taste are always more tiresome than they are provocative, and his latest effort ‘Ice Cream Man’ is no different…”
Review: Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s ‘The Samurai and the Prisoner’
“‘The Samurai and the Prisoner’ never subverts expectations, which is further proof that Kurosawa’s skill as a genre craftsman extends far beyond his horror comfort zone.”
Review: Gregg Araki’s ‘I Want Your Sex’
“Outside of the liberated world of contemporary queer cinema, ‘I Want Your Sex’ is like nothing else on our screens right now.”
Review: John Early’s ‘Maddie’s Secret’
“Camp is a near impossible sensation to manufacture without feeling forced, but Early manages to evoke it with ease in ‘Maddie’s Secret.'”
Building the New Queer Canon #11: Reinventing the Modern Love Story with Pierre le Gall’s ‘Flesh and Fuel’
“‘Flesh and Fuel’ has an inherent romanticism which transforms le Gall’s 2026 film into a tear-jerking crowd pleaser instead of a political commentary first and foremost…”
Review: John Carney’s ‘Power Ballad’
“‘Power Ballad’ is an authentic crowd pleaser that the movie’s in-universe hit single could never be.”
Review: Daniel Roher’s ‘Tuner’
“The most damning thing about ‘Tuner’ is that it feels like a very deliberate attempt to make a festival-friendly “calling card” movie…”
Review: Curry Barker’s ‘Obsession’
“‘Obsession’ refuses to underestimate the emotional intelligence of the audience and refrains from spoon-feeding viewers monologues about abuse and trauma.”
Building the New Queer Canon #10: Elliot Tuttle’s ‘Blue Film’ and Tackling Society’s Ultimate Taboo
“‘Blue Film’ is one of the more morally challenging films of recent memory, daring the audience to find empathy for a man who has desires he can’t fully atone for…”
Review: Cole Webley’s ‘Omaha’
“My biggest concern with ‘Omaha’ is that the third act turn feels like a calculated rug-pull which transforms a more considered slice-of-life drama into something far more emotionally manipulative.”
Review: Chandler Levack’s ‘Mile End Kicks’
“‘Mile End Kicks’ is a deliberately infuriating character study and a step-by-step guide for anyone embarking on a career as a freelance writer.”
Review: 2026 Oscar Nominees for Animated Short Film
“‘The Girl Who Cried Pearls’ is a great modern fairytale, but there’s something even more impactful left in the margins which could have elevated it beyond an effective homage into something singular.”
Review: 2026 Oscar Nominees for Live-Action Short Film
“‘The Singers is the only prospective crowd-pleaser in the 2026 Oscars’ Live-Action Short Film crop that doesn’t buckle under the weight of contrived plot mechanics.”
Review: 2026 Oscar Nominees for Best Documentary Short Film
“In a field where ‘Perfectly a Strangeness’ was surrounded by Earthly horrors, it invited the most unadventurous Academy voters to collectively imagine their place amongst the cosmos.”
Building the New Queer Canon #9: Richard Linklater’s ‘Blue Moon’ and the 2026 Oscars
“‘Blue Moon’ effortlessly resists tropes of queer suffering and troubled artists to become another delightful hangout character study from the American master of them.”
Building the New Queer Canon #9: Harry Lighton’s ‘Pillion’
“Look past the chastity cages, pup masks and Prince Albert piercings and you’ll find one of the most incisive, painfully relatable stories about modern queer romance to have arrived of late.”
Building the New Queer Canon #8: Siobhan McCarthy’s ‘She’s the He’
“‘She’s the He’ is a successful attempt at not just carving out a space for LGBTQ identity amidst the overbearingly heterosexual narrative tropes, but also bending those tropes so they can fit into a tale of trans awakening…”
LFF 2025 Review: Chloé Zhao’s ‘Hamnet’
“For a film which tackles the cathartic nature of art and how fiction can help us heal after a tragedy, the personal touches of ‘Hamnet’ feel hollow whenever Zhao tries to conform to Shakespeare’s pop culture image.”
LFF 2025 Review: Joachim Trier’s ‘Sentimental Value’
“As a film about the healing properties of the creative process, ‘Sentimental Value’ is rare in that the in-movie writing, performances and direction aren’t cathartic for the characters, but rather function as obstacles when they try to unpack their feelings.”
Building the New Queer Canon #7: Carmen Emmi’s ‘Plainclothes’
“‘Plainclothes’ isn’t necessarily a kinky film — it just does better than most tales of life in the closet to explain why this can be more alluring than coming out and finding somewhere to make these connections in the open.”