“‘Young Ahmed’ Needs Time To Grow Up”

Hey, did you know that a new Dardennes movie just came out less than a month ago? Bet you didn’t. I bet even the Dardennes didn’t! Continue reading →

Review: Cold War, 2018, dir. Pawel Pawlikowski

I did, four years ago, write a review of Pawel Pawlikowski’s post-war masterpiece Ida, but I’m not certain it’s still online or if I ever even shared it on this website; that’s too bad, because it’d be nice to revisit my words for context for Cold War, Pawlikowski’s new film, which I imagine years from now I’ll also … Continue reading →

Review: Anatahan, 1953, dir. Josef von Sternberg

There are two primary reasons to see Josef von Sternberg’s <i>Anatahan</i>. The first is that it’s a rarity, the final film in Sternberg’s solo directing career before co-directing <i>Jet Pilot</i> in 1957 with Fred Fleck. <i>Anatahan</i> is a picture obscured by the passage of time and by its own financial failure, a box office stumble … Continue reading →

Review: My Happy Family, 2017, dir. Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross

And here’s my second Sundance review for The Playlist, detailing the exquisite My Happy Family, a Georgian film by the directing duo of Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross. I’ve never seen anything they’ve made together before. I want to go back and watch all of their works now. My Happy Family is absolutely wonderful, and while I have a … Continue reading →

Review: Is That You?, 2016, dir. Dani Menkin

Pardon me for falling off the “share my work” train, and for flooding your email and your various social media feeds with all that stuff I haven’t shared for like a month. Also pardon me for recriminating myself instead of talking about Is That You?, the movie that this post will eventually link to by the … Continue reading →

Review: Embrace of the Serpent, 2016, dir. Ciro Guerra

This year, the race for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Picture might have been the most easily predicted outside of Best Animated Feature; even if you only knew of Son of Saul through pop culture osmosis, it’s likely that you were pretty sure the Academy voters were going to give it the top prize … Continue reading →

Review: Mediterranea, 2015, dir. Jonas Carpignano

“Occasionally, fate and movie release schedules collude with one another to drop a fresh title on audiences at exactly the right moment. That’s more or less the case with Mediterranea, the feature debut of short filmmaker Jonas Carpignano: Check his picture against the United States’ dialogue on immigration, and you may feel the unnerving sense … Continue reading →

Review: Youth, 2015, dir. Tom Shoval

“Brothers Shaul (Eitan Cunio) and Yaki (David Cunio) Cooper are as close as two siblings can be: They watch movies together, they pee together, and, when their family’s financial chips are down, they kidnap and ransom people together. Israeli filmmaker Tom Shoval’s film Youthbegins with Shaul hatching the brothers’ plot as he follows their target—wealthy … Continue reading →

Review: Prince, 2015, dir. Sam de Jong

If you’ve seen the coming-of-age movies and crime flicks that influence Sam de Jong’s Prince, you can guess where it’s heading within its first 10 minutes. Teenage boys with too much free time and too many hormones, menacing older boys who haunt their inner city neighborhood, pulsing house scores, adolescent infatuation, misguided masculinity, material obsession, … Continue reading →

Review: Big Game, 2015, dir. Jalmari Helander

“Big Game’s stelliform cast isn’t the only proof Finnish director Jalmari Helander has gone Hollywood. The scene that best evinces his Tinseltown transition plays out in the film’s first few minutes, in which one of the supporting players from Helander’s international breakout movie, the wonderful Yuletide-horror gem Rare Exports, gets mercilessly exploded in a wanton … Continue reading →

Review: Rebels of the Neon God, 1992, dir. Tsai Ming-liang

“If Tsai Ming-liang hadn’t beaten Nicolas Winding Refn’s career to the punch by several years, Rebels of the Neon God would have been a killer moniker for one of the great Dane’s as-yet-unimagined future projects. Even in that alternate timeline, though, Tsai’s debut feature comes from such a culturally specific place that only he could … Continue reading →

WTH Just Happened?: ‘Where is Mama’s Boy?’

“Ever blind-watched a movie just because you recognized its supporting cast? Have you ever thought to yourself, “Hey, I know this person from the secondary roles they’ve played in internationally prominent films!” and used that as justification to check out the random, obscure titles they spend most of their timing slumming it in? If so, … Continue reading →

Goodbye to Language, 2015, dir. Jean-Luc Godard

“Jean-Luc Godard has made his new film, Goodbye to Language, in much the same spirit as Tarō Gomi’s seminal children’s book Everyone Poops: no matter what differences may set us apart from one another, we’re all united through our undeniable human need to defecate. It’s the greatest of equalizers.” (Via Paste Magazine.)

Review: Futuro Beach, 2015, dir. Karim Aïnouz

“Karim Aïnouz’s Futuro Beach is a film that searches for beauty amid the crisis of life. Drilling down on that outline, it’s a film about life cycles; the foundation of its narrative, loose and shapeless though it may be, rests on the human connections made and conflicts waged in the wake of a single death. … Continue reading →

Review: R100, 2015, dir. Hitoshi Matsumoto

“In R100, Takafumi Katayama (Nao Ōmori), a workaholic father burdened by loneliness over his wife’s catatonic state, decides to sign up for a one-year contract with a gentleman’s bondage club. Membership comes with a few decidedly inconvenient stipulations; most notably, he must live all 365 days in constant anxiety over where, and when, he might … Continue reading →

Review: The Tower, 2014, dir. Christian Schwochow

“Boy, has The Tower been put through the wringer in the last 6 years. It began its life as a novel in 2008; was translated into a two-part television event in 2012; and now has had both of those halves stitched together into a theatrical release for American theaters in 2014. Did Uwe Tellkamp anticipate … Continue reading →

Go, See, Talk! Review: Pusher, 2012, dir. Luis Prieto

If anything, Pusher is a perfect example of what a remake both should and should not be; it’s well-made and engaging, but it also brings nothing new to a story we’ve already seen before. Continue reading →

Go, See, Talk! Review: Oslo, August 31st, 2012, dir. Joachim Trier

One day spent within the confines of Oslo can be a daunting task for a recovering drug addict, and Norway’s Joachim Trier has dedicated his second directorial feature to documenting that conflict with artfully frigid flourishes. Continue reading →

Review: In the Loop, 2009, dir. Armando Iannucci

If one word describes In the Loop, Armando Iannucci’s 2009 political satire, it’s almost certainly “scathing”. If two, that and “unforgiving”. Going further would only yield an entire novella of words meant to convey intense discontent or outright anger, and indeed the only declarative statement I can make about the film in the positive is … Continue reading →

The Criterion Files: Bicycle Thieves/Gomorrah (pt. 2)

It’s taken me some time, but I finally have the second half of the most recent Criterion Files installment for you to peruse. I realize we’re well outside the week and a half timeline I hinted at in the first part, but by now you should all know me well enough to not take my … Continue reading →