True/False 2018 Review: Khalik Allah’s ‘Black Mother’
“Even if you do not believe in the soul, the film makes it impossible to deny the soul of a country, that which births us, grooms us, and to which we add as we live and die inside it.”
True/False 2018 Review: Beata Bubenec’s ‘Flight of a Bullet’
“Formally electrifying and ethically discomfiting at the same time, ‘Flight of a Bullet’ is a movie one could just as easily gawk at in wonder or endlessly debate over.”
2018 Oscar-Nominated Short Reviews: Best Live Action Short Film and Best Documentary (Short Subject)
“While nearly all Oscar-nominated shorts are doomed to eventual obscurity whether they win or not, that’s the key to one’s artistic staying power.”
Could Jordan Peele’s ‘Get Out’ Break Horror’s Dry Spell at the Oscars?
“Art is a product of its time; is it Get Out’s fault that the time mostly resembles a horror production?”
Sundance Film Festival Review: Josephine Decker’s ‘Madeline’s Madeline’
“At the risk of succumbing to the Sundance hype atmosphere, writer/director Josephine Decker may be offering a new form of altered cinematic consciousness with ‘Madeline’s Madeline.’”
Review: Fatih Akin’s ‘In the Fade’
“Writer/director Akin presents everything through a stilted lens which mistakes prosaic framing and editing for a matter of fact tone.”
Review: Scott Cooper’s ‘Hostiles’
“For all its attempts at dissecting human cruelty, there’s no human core to this story, which makes its 135-minute runtime feel twice as long.”
TIFF 2017 Review: Lucrecia Martel’s ‘Zama’
“‘Zama’ is the kind of historical film that refuses to concede even the smallest positivity to the history in question.”
TIFF 2017 Review: Alexander Payne’s ‘Downsizing’
“‘Downsizing’ thinks it has big ideas, but artistically and intellectually, it’s as small as its protagonists.”