Dustin Chang
Tomatometer-approved critic
An adventurous spectator and an occasional practitioner of all things cinema.
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Godland (2022) |
With its circle of life ending, Godland is a contemplation of us humans’ fleeting existence on earth. In a true Herzogian sense, with large brushstrokes, Pálmason draws a grand allegory that we are after all, elemental. And it's magnificent. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Feb 01, 2023
|
|
|
|
One Fine Morning (2022) |
As in all of her previous films, Hansen-Løve is a keen observer of fleeting life. This time she is tackling the theme of aging and decline, which is not a subject many filmmakers touch upon. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Feb 01, 2023
|
|
|
|
Dry Ground Burning (2022) |
It's the defiance and fierce independence and self-reliance that matter. The film ends with the wrecked armored car on fire, like a carcass of completely hollowed out animal in flames. - Floating World
Read More
| Posted Nov 29, 2022
|
|
|
|
Bones and All (2022) |
Is this about Gen-Xer's rejection of the Boomers? Is this about consumerism? Or is this some silly teen romance with pacing problems? Either way, it's so skin-deep. - Floating World
Read More
| Posted Nov 29, 2022
|
|
|
|
EO (2022) |
EO is an allegory for how people, not by their own volition, get uprooted, go through unimaginable hardships and alienation, only to be at the mercy of a handful of strangers who ultimately don't have any stake in their lives. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Nov 29, 2022
|
|
|
|
Unrest (2022) |
Cyril Schäublin sets up the two contrasting forces - capitalism fueled by industrial revolution versus collectivist agitation in his beguiling film Unrest. - Floating World
Read More
| Posted Nov 29, 2022
|
|
|
|
Trenque Lauquen: Part I (2022) |
Trenque Lauquen is a dive into a rabbit hole that goes deeper and deeper as you dig. And the mystery thread gets more and more into a fantastic realm. - Floating World
Read More
| Posted Nov 29, 2022
|
|
|
|
Decision to Leave (2022) |
In Park's hand, our mundane everyday technology - smartphone, smartwatch, Bluetooth, etc., becomes something sensual, ASMR and highly hypnotic. - Floating World
Read More
| Posted Nov 29, 2022
|
|
|
|
Aftersun (2022) |
Our brains tend to obscure, distort and falsify as well as heighten, protect and heal, depending on how you want to remember that moments or person in your life. Aftersun, is a poignant and deeply personal examination of those memories. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Oct 11, 2022
|
|
|
|
Pacifiction (2022) |
Its narrative sparsity makes Claire Denis's Stars at Noon feel like reading a dense instruction manual for a washing machine by comparison. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Oct 06, 2022
|
|
|
|
De Humani Corporis Fabrica (2022) |
Cutting out shiny flesh from the body with the help of tiny camera and monitor in treating the human body like any other object showcases unprecedented human progress contrasting with elemental nature of a human body - bag of bones. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Oct 06, 2022
|
|
|
|
Showing Up (2022) |
Showing Up is emblematic of small pleasures we get from our creations that success doesn’t measure in fame and fortune. It’s self-satisfaction of showing up every day to your studio (or basement, or shed, or garage) and creating. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Oct 06, 2022
|
|
|
|
Tár (2022) |
Field has really achieved something remarkable with Tár. It’s one of those big character-driven films that is rare to be made nowadays. With its mesmerizing closeups and Blanchett’s commanding performance, the film is spectacular. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Oct 06, 2022
|
|
|
|
Stars at Noon (2022) |
It doesn't quite work as a global intrigue espionage thriller, nor as a Claire Denis film. Nonetheless, I can see the merit in Denis's comment on the pervasiveness of white colonialism in Latin America where idealism and good intentions have gone to die. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Oct 06, 2022
|
|
|
|
Saint Omer (2022) |
Diop here is making a powerful statement, about the highly patriarchal society, colonialism, racism and women's rights, both subtly and unsubtly. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Oct 06, 2022
|
|
|
|
Moonage Daydream (2022) |
See it big and see it loud. It's one of the best moviegoing experiences of the year. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Oct 06, 2022
|
|
|
|
Hold Me Tight (2021) |
Amalric, adapting from Claudine Galea's play Je reviens de loin, makes perhaps his most heartfelt film as a writer/director. Give Krieps all the acting awards there are! - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Oct 06, 2022
|
|
|
|
The Cathedral (2022) |
The Cathedral feels very much universal and personal at the same time, as it plays out like an emotionally unencumbered version of Richard Linklater's Boyhood, akin to Terence Davies' work.
- ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Sep 05, 2022
|
|
|
|
Fire of Love (2022) |
It's hard to find someone to spend our lives with let alone one who shares the same passion. Armed with explosive materials accompanied by lyrical collages, Dosa accentuates the story of two lovers who shared the same passion and lived and died together. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Jul 07, 2022
|
|
|
|
Both Sides of the Blade (2021) |
Both Binoche and Lindon are on top of their games. Strong, mature yet vulnerable, they are regular people buckling under the pressure of so-called modern life, which seems to be going crazier by the minute. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Jul 07, 2022
|
|
|
|
After Blue (2021) |
After the initial kitchy retro vibe of the production design, glow-in-the-dark paints and glitter wear off, there is nothing much to do for the cast, other than looking like being stranded in a darkly lit muppet show episode. - Floating World
Read More
| Posted Jun 27, 2022
|
|
|
|
The Great Movement (2021) |
El Gran Movimiento is a topical film with strong visuals as well as boundary pushing cinematic exercise and undoubtedly one of the best films of the year. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Jun 27, 2022
|
|
|
|
Ahed's Knee (2021) |
It's an angry film and shows its director's resourcefulness in saying what he has to say in the strongest terms (in the guise of making a fiction) while getting away from the grips of the censors while making a film within the country. - Floating World
Read More
| Posted Jun 27, 2022
|
|
|
|
The Young Karl Marx (2017) |
Maybe the film is too even tempered, and that might be the reason the film wasn't widely seen, but it deserves some serious attention while our world is burning more ways than one right now. - Floating World
Read More
| Posted Jun 27, 2022
|
|
|
|
Happy End (2017) |
It's the late Trintignant who steals the show. His scene with young Harduin is so good. Bleak in the assessment of our present society which is grooming a generation that lacks empathy, Happy End is in line with other great Haneke films & just as strong. - Floating World
Read More
| Posted Jun 27, 2022
|
|
|
|
Crimes of the Future (2022) |
And this is the point Cronenberg has been making all his career- our futile quests for answers in what makes us humans, in our bodies which are the most personal, tangible things that each of us possesses, and not finding it there. - Floating World
Read More
| Posted Jun 01, 2022
|
|
|
|
Los Conductos (2020) |
A daring, dazzling cinematic excercise, directed by Camilo Restrepo, that once again proves the future of cinema is in Latin America. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Apr 26, 2022
|
|
|
|
Paris, 13th District (2021) |
Audiard creates sexy, vibrant and ethnically diverse portrayals of youthful love stories that upends the postcard-ready and homogenous Paris romances we are usually familiar with. It's a welcome change. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Apr 14, 2022
|
|
|
|
A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021) |
From Godard and May 68, to mythical Hindu God films, to Chris Marker, A Night of Knowing Nothing weaves an intoxicating visual, textural contemplation of our relationship with cinema as an unintentional but nevertheless undeniably nostalgic medium. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Feb 13, 2022
|
|
|
|
Fabian: Going to the Dogs (2021) |
The film shouldn't be regarded as one of those German prestige pictures because it's not a mere nostalgia picture. It's a stark reminder of the reemergence of fascism and ultra-right wing nationalism across Europe. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Feb 13, 2022
|
|
|
|
All Light, Everywhere (2021) |
Always mindful about racist American history, Anthony connects the dots to expose the uneasy relationship among technology, commerce, race and power dynamics of the eyes of the beholder. And it's a fascinating one. - Floating World
Read More
| Posted Jan 27, 2022
|
|
|
|
The Worst Person in the World (2021) |
What I admire about Trier's characters over the years is not only their modern sensibility, but also their indomitable youthful spunk. It would be a mistake to define them by their cultured, ultra-urban sophistication therefore consider them hollow. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Jan 27, 2022
|
|
|
|
France (2021) |
In France Dumont seems to be likening the news celeb culture to a new religion, with France's garishly decorated apartment, including stained glass wall featuring some mundane pop art pastoral, as our new altar.
- ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Jan 27, 2022
|
|
|
|
Compartment No. 6 (2021) |
Wanderlust, human connection, loneliness, trains, cold weather. Juho Kuosmanen finds a delicate balance in chiseling out beautiful moments of human connections without unnecessary backstories or dramatics. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Jan 27, 2022
|
|
|
|
Niagara (1953) |
Technicolor is stunning, so as the set design. Rose's prolonged, almost silent murder scene is as good as it gets and puts most stylish giallos to shame. - Floating World
Read More
| Posted Jan 27, 2022
|
|
|
|
Expedition Content (2020) |
At times tender and jarring in others, Expedition Content is a wondrous aural experience to be had. - Floating World
Read More
| Posted Jan 27, 2022
|
|
|
|
Happening (2021) |
Clear eyed Vartolomei's performance is something of a miracle here as a young woman with her whole promising future tittering on the cliff because of the legality of a simple medical procedure to her body, her own body(!) - Floating World
Read More
| Posted Jan 27, 2022
|
|
|
|
The Tale of King Crab (2021) |
he Tale of King Crab is an adventure in more ways than one. Silli's craggy face with his smooth, clear voice guides us through the most unlikely places. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Jan 26, 2022
|
|
|
|
August in the Water (1995) |
Mixing New Age spirituality, animism, astrophysics and advancement in technology, Gakuryu Ishii's trippy 90's relic, the film can be seen as the quintessential film for vaporwave. - Floating World
Read More
| Posted Jan 08, 2022
|
|
|
|
Silence (2016) |
Silence is a somber film full of stellar performances. It reminds me of Scorsese's Kundun, in terms of theme and scale. I just wish he does more of these films instead of gangster flicks. - Floating World
Read More
| Posted Jan 08, 2022
|
|
|
|
Edvard Munch (1975) |
Peter Watkins's Edvard Munch plays out like how Kurt Vonnegut laying out time. The tumultuous time in late 19th century Europe is displayed in the background, giving the film much needed context behind Munch's often disturbing art. - Floating World
Read More
| Posted Jan 08, 2022
|
|
|
|
Flee (2021) |
Rasmussen thought that in telling a story of his shy, refugee friend since middle school, using animation was a good way to provide him a buffer and anonymity. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Dec 01, 2021
|
|
|
|
Benedetta (2021) |
As a film, Benedetta is not subliminal enough to be taken seriously, nor scintillating or flirty enough even for Verehoven standards. - Floating World
Read More
| Posted Dec 01, 2021
|
|
|
|
Procession (2021) |
Robert Greene's collaboration with the abuse victims and a drama therapist, is perhaps the most powerful and impactful documentary I've ever seen since Act of Killing.
- ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Nov 25, 2021
|
|
|
|
Spencer (2021) |
Kristen Stewart stars in yet another major film from director Pablo Larrain, a modern master in cinema. Do not miss seeing the film on the big screen. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Nov 05, 2021
|
|
|
|
What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (2021) |
The film is about training our gaze on ordinary things. There is so much violence and hate in the world, why don't we focus on the beauty and wonder of our daily lives, the omniscient narrator seems to suggest. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Nov 05, 2021
|
|
|
|
The Monopoly of Violence (2020) |
I think the film is an exemplary in reflecting these thoughts after one of the most violent and prolonged civil unrests in France's modern history. And I hope we can learn from that. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Oct 15, 2021
|
|
|
|
In Front of Your Face (2021) |
The film may lack Hong's narrative and structural inventiveness but it has a nasty hook that gets you at the end, defying the conventional romance narrative. It's wickedly funny, too. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Oct 08, 2021
|
|
|
|
Neptune Frost (2021) |
Think of it as a spiritual, joyful lo-fi cousin of The Matrix and Bacurau. The message might be the same, but with more music and dancing. And it still manages to look like a badass cyberpunk film. Neptune Frost is a future cult classic in the making. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Oct 08, 2021
|
|
|
|
Petite Maman (2021) |
Guileless and astute in its observation of childhood, Petite Maman is a fairytale without fringes and definitely one of the most touching films of the year. - ScreenAnarchy
Read More
| Posted Oct 08, 2021
|