Review: Ciro Guerra’s ‘Waiting for the Barbarians’
“‘Waiting for the Barbarians’ is utterly removed from anything of Italy, and yet echoes the most vulgar and despicable parts of film culture.”
Manic Lust in Neo-Giallo ‘Knife + Heart’
“As a love letter to a cinematic wave of films that were (and are) often dismissed as style devoid of substance, ‘Knife+Heart’ triumphs in both story and genre evolution.”
Review: Milena Lurie’s ‘Entangled’
“‘Entangled’ feels like a clunky ‘Love in New York’ story during the first hour, but ultimately transforms into a moving tale about self-love and acceptance.”
The Neorealist Connection: Italy’s Polizieschi
“Though the polizieschi may seem far away from the quiet nobility of the Neorealist films, with all their sober-minded social critique, they are bound together by the privileging of the real world.”
Review: Pietro Marcello’s ‘Martin Eden’
“In ‘Martin Eden,’ the games that Marcello plays with form and structure coalesce into an immensely moving film, which — grounded by the standout turn from Marinelli — offers a new direction for the stale “Great American Novel” adaptation.”
Penelope Spheeris’ ‘Suburbia’: Not Just a Teenage Wasteland
“‘Suburbia’ is a punk classic not just because it deeply understands and empathizes with its culture – the music, the violence, the clothes, the often-jarring lack of political sophistication – but because it understands something important about punk’s place in society at large…”
Julia Hart Powers Up with ‘Fast Color’
“‘Fast Color’ deserves a close look…”
Review: Daniel Kremer’s ‘Overwhelm the Sky’
“Mesmerizing and immaculately-structured, ‘Overwhelm the Sky’ is an ambitious indie epic that doesn’t waste a single minute.”
New York Film Festival Review: Edward Norton’s ‘Motherless Brooklyn’
“‘Motherless Brooklyn’ may not be a sterling example of traditional noir, but its subtext is gripping in its own way. The victim of this crime story isn’t a dead man or a damsel in distress, but the spirit of a city.”
12 Angry Films: Sidney Lumet on Justice #4 – ‘Serpico’
“With ‘Serpico,’ Lumet becomes a defining chronicler of American institutional corruption, most obviously within the justice system.”
Joanna Hogg Directs a Dazzling Honor Swinton Byrne in ‘The Souvenir’
“‘The Souvenir’ is essential viewing for devoted cinephiles.”
London Film Festival Review: Marco Bellocchio’s ‘The Traitor’
“It wouldn’t be surprising to see ‘The Traitor’ filed in the Dad-canon of crime cinema alongside other European films like ‘Mesrine’ or ‘The Baader Meinhof Complex’ — films where the context is too wide to sufficiently cover…”
Losing My Religion: Unhallowed Irreverence in ‘Alice, Sweet Alice’
“Alice, Sweet Alice’s attitude is an unforgiving one. What, Sole asks, is the difference between Alice, who hurts because she’s sociopathic, and the zealous Ms. Tredoni, who hurts out of righteousness?”
Review: Todd Phillips’ ‘Joker’ Is Aggressively Decent
“‘Joker’ is what so many controversial films turn out to be: it’s fine — neither masterpiece nor trash fire, well-executed in some parts and poorly thought out in others.”
Lynn Shelton Goes South in ‘Sword of Trust’
“Shelton convincingly alternates between the absurd misadventures of the core quartet and the well-observed moments of confessional pathos during which the audience sees the characters as humans doing their best to get along in the world…”
Review: Henry Alex Rubin’s ‘Semper Fi’
“‘Semper Fi’ leans heavily on male codes of honor but doesn’t fully explore the motivations for the primary players, a group of Marines trying to re-acclimate to life in upstate New York. As a result, the final act suffers.”
The Diffusion of Giallo in Nicolas Roeg’s ‘Don’t Look Now’
“‘Don’t Look Now’ stands as one of the best iterations of the giallo film. It takes the best elements of the commercialized Italian psycho-thriller and presents them with a Hitchcockian flair.”
Speaking Power to Truth: Roberto Rossellini’s ‘Paisan’
“Rossellini astonishingly blends the good and the bad into an imperfect merging of society in all its multiplicity of guises. Death, desolation and violence are as pervasive in the film as love and empathy.”
Narcissus’ Pink Mirror: On Fantasy and Queer Desire
“Fantasy exists to create a place of greater safety, a rejection of the real world in favour of one that allows for an open, unapologetic queerness.”
Review: Steven Soderbergh’s ‘The Laundromat’
“A great magician never reveals his tricks, and Soderbergh far too nakedly shows the craft in ‘The Laundromat,’ whereas a narrower focus, with the human consequence of the Panama Papers in clear sight, could have beguiled, incited and entertained in equal measure.”