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Piaffe
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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A slippery meditation on gender and eroticism that drifts into a wondrous state of abstraction, full of dialogue-free interludes powered by sound, movement and sex scenes in which people aren’t actually having sex.
Posted Mar 25, 2023
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Boston Strangler
(2023)
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Sean Burns
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One of the most shamelessly pandering pictures I’ve seen in some time.
Posted Mar 16, 2023
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The Boston Strangler
(1968)
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Sean Burns
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A shockingly hopeless look at institutional incompetence in the face of an unfathomable threat.
Posted Mar 16, 2023
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Champions
(2023)
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Sean Burns
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There isn’t a surprise in the movie except for how enjoyable it is.
Posted Mar 09, 2023
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Beau travail
(1999)
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Sean Burns
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The movie is a mass of engorged muscles and entwined limbs; desire rerouted through conformity and cruelty in the rhythm of the night.
Posted Mar 09, 2023
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Creed III
(2023)
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Sean Burns
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Jordan is let down in a big way by cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau, who flattens all these evocative images into a hazy, low-contrast, digital blur.
Posted Mar 02, 2023
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The Quiet Girl
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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A delicate film of small gestures and the slow building of trust.
Posted Mar 02, 2023
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How to Rob
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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A familiar story of two stick-up guys from Quincy who knock over the wrong North End bookie, but beneath the Boston crime movie clichés is a surprising lyricism, building to an unexpectedly emotional conclusion.
Posted Mar 02, 2023
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Emily
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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O’Connor gins up a randy melodrama of missed connections, undelivered letters and deathbed confessions in the doomy, romantic spirit of her subject.
Posted Feb 23, 2023
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Marlowe
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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On paper this all sounds perfect, yet almost nothing in the picture works.
Posted Feb 14, 2023
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One Fine Morning
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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There’s a beautiful flow to the picture. I’ve heard it compared to a river, which is one of those things critics say that sounds crazy until you see the movie and then it makes perfect sense.
Posted Feb 09, 2023
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The Eternal Daughter
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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‘The Eternal Daughter’ isn’t a horror movie, but it’s haunted. This is a hotel where you bring your own ghosts.
Posted Feb 06, 2023
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Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
(1975)
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Sean Burns
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"It is a towering achievement in cinema. It's also one of the last films I’d ever recommend to casual moviegoers, which is why the placement of 'Jeanne Dielman' at the top of the BFI list strikes me as such a problematic provocation.
Posted Jan 28, 2023
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Skinamarink
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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You don’t watch the movie so much as you sink into it, allowing yourself to be enveloped by the intensely unsettling atmosphere.
Posted Jan 12, 2023
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Broker
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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A gentle movie of great warmth that proceeds from an appalling premise.
Posted Jan 08, 2023
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White Noise
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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You’d never get a movie like 'White Noise' if it needed to make any money at the box office. For the audience, this is both a blessing and a curse.
Posted Jan 08, 2023
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Holy Spider
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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'Holy Spider' is awfully hard to watch, but I don’t think there’s any responsible version of this story that isn’t.
Posted Dec 21, 2022
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All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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It feels all of a piece, restlessly questioning entrenched ideas of what constitutes decency and respectability in America.
Posted Dec 11, 2022
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A Couple
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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On the surface this might seem an inversion of the filmmaker’s entire modus operandi, and yet 'A Couple' is still spiritually a Frederick Wiseman film through and through.
Posted Dec 02, 2022
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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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Funnier and more manic than the first film, even if there’s an irony in seeking to satirize the immodesty of tech-bubble billionaires by setting as much of Netflix’s money on fire as humanly possible,
Posted Nov 21, 2022
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Utama
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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'Utama' is not exactly what one would call a subtle or particularly complex piece of storytelling. Nor does it need to be.
Posted Nov 21, 2022
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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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A dutiful, mirthless movie derailed by a real-life loss from which no franchise could feasibly recover.
Posted Nov 08, 2022
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Lost Highway
(1997)
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Sean Burns
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Peels away the pulp trappings and runs almost entirely on film noir’s foundational fears.
Posted Nov 05, 2022
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The Lady From Shanghai
(1948)
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Sean Burns
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A sweaty, seriously horny movie that’s also accidentally a documentary about the last days of a Hollywood marriage.
Posted Nov 05, 2022
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Out of the Past
(1947)
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Sean Burns
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A melancholy dream of a movie with Mitchum at his most magnetic and insouciant, nearly every line a zinger and so many cigarettes smoked so seductively the film could cause cancer in casual viewers.
Posted Nov 05, 2022
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Causeway
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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A quiet, unassuming picture that moves at the speed of everyday life.
Posted Nov 05, 2022
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Halloween
(1978)
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Sean Burns
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A favorite of both the Film Comment set and the Fangoria crowd because, at heart, it’s a minimalist art film.
Posted Nov 05, 2022
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Evil Dead 2
(1987)
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Sean Burns
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The zaniest zombie movie ever made.
Posted Nov 05, 2022
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Angel Heart
(1987)
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Sean Burns
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Scary as hell but also something of a hoot, with a mordant sense of humor and some of the genre’s greatest character names.
Posted Nov 05, 2022
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Twixt
(2011)
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Sean Burns
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A strange, snickering and sometimes terribly sad picture that deserved a better audience.
Posted Nov 05, 2022
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Night of the Living Dead
(1968)
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Sean Burns
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The cruel and abrupt ending is still shattering and feels even more depressingly plausible today.
Posted Nov 05, 2022
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Ticket to Paradise
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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Feels like being handed a glass of water after a long walk across the desert. It’s lukewarm tap water and a little cloudy, but you’re grateful for it all the same.
Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Tár
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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There’s nothing didactic about ‘Tár,’ nor any simple moral you can hashtag or put on a bumper sticker. The film is complicated. Difficult. Much like its protagonist.
Posted Oct 12, 2022
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Pierrot le Fou
(1965)
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Sean Burns
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The most spectacularly beautiful of Godard’s films, and not just for the closeups of Karina.
Posted Oct 10, 2022
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Band of Outsiders
(1964)
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Sean Burns
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It’s impossible to imagine Tarantino’s italicized pulp fiction without the arch influence of this effervescent caper.
Posted Oct 10, 2022
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Breathless
(1959)
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Sean Burns
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Godard is constantly calling attention to the artifice and reminding you that you’re watching a movie. Much like its protagonist, 'Breathless' can't stop looking at itself in the mirror.
Posted Oct 10, 2022
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Amsterdam
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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It’s a blundering mess of a movie, but an endearing one.
Posted Oct 06, 2022
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Blonde
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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It is an awful lot. Probably too much.
Posted Sep 27, 2022
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Don't Worry Darling
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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It’s a drag being so far ahead of the characters the entire time, and Wilde’s maddeningly repetitive structure makes the viewer feel as trapped as the protagonist.
Posted Sep 26, 2022
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Moonage Daydream
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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A swirling, maximalist mosaic both electrifying and exhausting.
Posted Sep 15, 2022
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Three Thousand Years of Longing
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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A deeply weird flight of fancy, alternating heady discussions with the most miraculous images you’ll see all year.
Posted Aug 24, 2022
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Dirty Dancing
(1987)
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Sean Burns
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The scorching chemistry between Swayze and Grey is enough to crush any petty plot concerns or questions about how they could be dancing to instruments that haven’t been invented yet.
Posted Aug 18, 2022
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Thirteen Lives
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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A rock-solid example of old-fashioned Hollywood craftsmanship, the kind of thing that used to pack people into movie theaters.
Posted Aug 04, 2022
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Mississippi Masala
(1991)
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Sean Burns
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The movie’s not just hot, it’s humid.
Posted Jul 22, 2022
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Nope
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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A throwback to funny Friday night fright flicks like 'Tremors' or 'Signs', Peele's latest is an audience picture full of good, old-fashioned jump scares and blessed with an economy of scale.
Posted Jul 20, 2022
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Both Sides of the Blade
(2021)
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Sean Burns
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No living director so evocatively photographs a tangle of limbs, or is as adept at capturing the electric charge of two people sharing a small physical space.
Posted Jul 16, 2022
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Elvis
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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A tacky, towering monolith of gaudy overkill and excess — as any film about Elvis Presley should rightfully be.
Posted Jun 23, 2022
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Hit the Road
(2021)
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Sean Burns
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Panahi's debut starts out like 'The Griswolds Go to Tehran,' but then it sneaks up on you and becomes something more.
Posted Jun 23, 2022
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Benediction
(2021)
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Sean Burns
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It’s about words as weapons, how they can prick and protect and give us places to hide.
Posted Jun 03, 2022
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Crimes of the Future
(2022)
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Sean Burns
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It’s all played as a horny, poker-faced comedy of manners, trying to get you turned on and grossed out at the same time.
Posted Jun 03, 2022
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