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The Nature of Love
(2023)
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Steve Erickson
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Director Monia Chokri finds a language for communicating Sophia’s desire without putting her body on display.
Posted Aug 05, 2024
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3/4
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Crumb Catcher
(2023)
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Peter Keough
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[A] deceptively smart, occasionally muddled debut feature.
Posted Aug 05, 2024
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Kneecap
(2024)
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Peter Keough
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A frenetic, funny, foul-mouthed, and sometimes facile testament to the fact that language matters.
Posted Aug 05, 2024
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Dìdi
(2024)
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Peter Keough
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Like Truffaut, Spielberg, Gerwig, and other renowned auteurs, Wang has made a deeply felt, funny film that cogently draws on his experiences as a volatile and angsty adolescent. It remains to be seen in future efforts how much he has grown up.
Posted Aug 05, 2024
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2/4
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Touch
(2024)
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Peter Keough
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There are flashbacks within flashbacks, flashbacks from other character’s points of view, and flashbacks to another period in Kristofer’s life as a middle-aged man... All of this shuffling is handled artlessly and to no lasting effect.
Posted Jul 24, 2024
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3/4
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Green Border
(2023)
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Peter Keough
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[Director Agnieszka Holland's] obvious point: despite the promises of a united Europe, respect for human rights today has sunk to a level not seen since the darkest days of fascism.
Posted Jul 24, 2024
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The Devil's Bath
(2024)
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Peg Aloi
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The Devil’s Bath is not a vague arcadian thriller populated by antlered beasts and shadowy legends: this is a flesh-and blood depiction of real life, daily life as a harsh litany of suffering and emptiness for those at the bottom.
Posted Jul 02, 2024
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Flipside
(2023)
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Peter Keough
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... Despite being a bit slick with its montages and glib with the voiceover narrative (testimony perhaps to the filmmaker’s commercial expertise), the film is proof that Wilcha is ready to quit his day job.
Posted Jun 28, 2024
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Ghostlight
(2024)
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Peter Keough
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A movie about an amateur theater company’s production of a classic play taps into the universal truth of irremediable and ineluctable loss. And there isn’t a dry eye in the house.
Posted Jun 25, 2024
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Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story
(2024)
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Gerald Peary
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A far too worshipful saga of Liza Minnelli, which title, like its hero, is way over the top: Liza: a Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story.
Posted Jun 25, 2024
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Merchant Ivory
(2023)
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Gerald Peary
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[An] affectionate portrait of the directing-producing team behind Room With a View (1985), Howard’s End (1992), Remains of the Day (1993), and many other classy, intelligent costume pictures.
Posted Jun 25, 2024
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Luther: Never Too Much
(2024)
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Gerald Peary
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Good, not great, better on showcasing Vandross’s lovely singing than telling his life.
Posted Jun 25, 2024
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Mad About the Boy: The Noël Coward Story
(2023)
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Gerald Peary
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I saw documentaries, the majority of them excellent, about gay men, a maybe gay man, a bi woman, and a wobbly straight woman who is the ultimate gay icon. My very favorite of the bunch was Mad About the Boy: the Noel Coward Story
Posted Jun 25, 2024
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We Strangers
(2024)
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Gerald Peary
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It’s far and away the Best Film of 2024, superior to anything that has come out of Hollywood.
Posted Jun 25, 2024
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Lumberjack the Monster
(2023)
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Steve Erickson
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The problem is that by halfheartedly trying to take an ‘explanatory’ route, Lumberjack the Monster turns its back on serving up perverse, gory genre fare.
Posted Jun 12, 2024
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Lost Soulz
(2023)
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Steve Erickson
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Still, the enthusiastic spirit of Lost Soulz is appealing enough to make what feels like two different types of movies sutured together dramatically satisfying.
Posted Jun 04, 2024
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Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara
(2023)
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Steve Erickson
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The film’s 133-minute runtime spans several decades in an ambitious attempt to fuse the micro and the macro, but it doesn’t fully succeed. The movie’s most potent moments are anchored in the domestic.
Posted May 31, 2024
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Hit Man
(2023)
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Steve Erickson
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Breezy as Hit Man is, there’s a sting to this romance’s tail.
Posted May 31, 2024
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Evil Does Not Exist
(2023)
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Gerald Peary
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Despite the artsy style, the narrative is missing the ambiguities and complexities of a high-level art-house movie.
Posted May 15, 2024
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Film Is Dead. Long Live Film!
(2024)
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Peg Aloi
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As thrilling as the stories of rescued footage are, the tales of what has been lost or willfully destroyed are harrowing.
Posted May 09, 2024
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Evil Does Not Exist
(2023)
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Peter Keough
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[A] lucid but dreamlike fable about the often fraught confrontation between humanity and nature – not to mention the elusiveness of point of view, of memory, of chronology, and of perception itself.
Posted May 09, 2024
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The Old Oak
(2023)
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Peter Keough
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[It's] a reminder that when grief and loss don’t bring out the worst in people, they can bring out the best.
Posted May 09, 2024
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Every Little Thing
(2024)
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Peter Keough
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For Masear the question is not rhetorical; no less than human beings, the value of even these smallest of creatures is incalculable...
Posted May 03, 2024
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Secret Mall Apartment
(2024)
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Peter Keough
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Tthe secret apartment also possessed a deeper, ambiguous, Borgesian kind of subversiveness, a meta-mirror of the insatiable consumerist culture that it gleefully inhabited. And this makes the film’s coda all the more satisfying...
Posted May 03, 2024
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Being Robin
(2022)
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Peter Keough
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The exigencies of production and perhaps a desire to mirror Williams's antic imagination contribute to the film's rough-around-the-edges, kaleidoscopic form.
Posted Apr 26, 2024
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Femme
(2023)
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Steve Erickson
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Up to that point, the film was ambivalent enough to be genuinely provocative. But finessing the depiction of a toxic romance can lead to some ugly places. Femme proves incapable of thinking outside of the genre box.
Posted Apr 23, 2024
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La Chimera
(2023)
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Betsy Sherman
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[It] celebrates the porousness of borders: between time periods, spiritual realms, and all living beings... The film also posits the strength of connection: the tensile strength of a piece of red yarn can support a passage between states of consciousness.
Posted Apr 19, 2024
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Amar Singh Chamkila
(2024)
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Steve Erickson
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Amar Singh Chamkila doesn’t hit the compelling heights of Highway and Tanasha, but the director Imtiaz Ali successfully infuses — within the limits of the musical biopic — a buoyant, rebellious spirit.
Posted Apr 16, 2024
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The Beast
(2023)
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Gerald Peary
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Who would predict that this perfectly calibrated tale would be yanked out of its early 20th century setting and become dystopian science-fiction?
Posted Apr 12, 2024
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1/4
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Civil War
(2024)
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Peter Keough
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Here moral/civic responsibility doesn’t really matter; these reporters are no more than thrill seekers, as is the director of Civil War, feeding an audience’s morbid desire for carnage, disruption, and prettily composed nihilism.
Posted Apr 11, 2024
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Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell
(2023)
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Peter Keough
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As reality and illusion blur, they are intimations of the spiritual lurking beneath the mundane that nudge the protagonist on his path to belief -- or its renunciation.
Posted Mar 27, 2024
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Mad Props
(2024)
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Gerald Peary
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[A] sweet, amusing documentary.
Posted Mar 27, 2024
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Late Night with the Devil
(2023)
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Peg Aloi
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Late Night with the Devil considers how the analog media trickery of a bygone era may illuminate our current obsessions with what is real, how art is created, who should be believed and what, ultimately, should be feared.
Posted Mar 22, 2024
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Shayda
(2023)
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Steve Erickson
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Niasari and Akbarzadeh bring out the vitality of Shayda and her world via bright colors. But the presence of darkness lingers around her, and when it hits home, the monstrosity is much more troubling than a ghost jumping into the frame.
Posted Mar 14, 2024
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Smoke Sauna Sisterhood
(2023)
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Peter Keough
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Smoke Sauna Sisterhood is a celebration of healing and the human spirit, a cinematic space rooted in prayer, meditation, and mystic contemplation.
Posted Mar 04, 2024
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Drive-Away Dolls
(2024)
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Peter Keough
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Perhaps if it had been made by Gregg Araki or Lizzie Borden or some other genuinely transgressive filmmaker, it might have been edgier, relevant, and a lot more fun.
Posted Feb 21, 2024
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Io Capitano
(2023)
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Peter Keough
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[It] focuses valuable attention on a human tragedy that has been twisted and exploited for base and hateful political ends. But the film does not go far enough, failing to meaningfully critique the entitled powers that have exacerbated the growing misery.
Posted Feb 21, 2024
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How to Have Sex
(2023)
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Gerald Peary
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Has there ever been a better or more accurate film about young girls on the edge of adulthood?
Posted Feb 16, 2024
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Good One
(2024)
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Peg Aloi
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This is a well-executed and rather naturalistic story about characters who learn what it means to be in the moment and observe what’s happening.
Posted Feb 16, 2024
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Every Little Thing
(2024)
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Peg Aloi
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It is a celebration of compassion as an instinct that propels people, at least some of us, to deeds that heal our hearts and inspire the spirits of others.
Posted Feb 16, 2024
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A New Kind of Wilderness
(2024)
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Peg Aloi
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The artful editing, and the subjects, who are earthy and genuine, ensure a viewing experience that is profoundly moving, beautiful, and insightful, even when it proves painful to watch.
Posted Feb 16, 2024
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Never Look Away
(2024)
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Peg Aloi
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This film is a labor of palpable love and loyalty...
Posted Feb 14, 2024
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Handling the Undead
(2024)
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Peg Aloi
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All of these ingredients are melded into a haunting, human tale of loss and resilience.
Posted Feb 14, 2024
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Little Death
(2024)
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Peg Aloi
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Little Death‘s unexpected trajectory will keep viewers guessing.
Posted Feb 14, 2024
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How to Have Sex
(2023)
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Steve Erickson
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How to Have Sex doesn’t criticize teenage girls for wanting to get laid, but it points out how the cultural environment in which they do so is directed entirely towards male pleasure -- safety or respect is not a consideration.
Posted Feb 09, 2024
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The Promised Land
(2023)
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Peg Aloi
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The Promised Land is an opulent and moving period piece that captures a location and era rarely depicted on the big screen.
Posted Feb 08, 2024
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Orion and the Dark
(2024)
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Peter Keough
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This being a DreamWorks movie, we can’t leave Orion frozen in front of a door that is about to open into who knows what. Though, to the film’s credit -- but probably not to its box office fortunes -- the door never quite goes away.
Posted Jan 31, 2024
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Origin
(2023)
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Peg Aloi
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The breadth and intimacy of Origin‘s vision -- the personal becomes the historical -- is stunning, a searing portrait of collective trauma and the dark ideas that propel it.
Posted Jan 25, 2024
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Society of the Snow
(2023)
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Peg Aloi
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Of course, the triumphant survival of fourteen passengers is at the heart of this astounding story. But this is not your standard feel-good fable about the indomitable human spirit triumphing over adversity.
Posted Jan 11, 2024
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All of Us Strangers
(2023)
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Peg Aloi
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Andrew Haigh’s newest film is an unusual and unforgettable cinematic masterpiece.
Posted Jan 04, 2024
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