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Celine and Julie Go Boating
(1974)
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David Phelps
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Céline and Julie Go Boating is a do it yourself guide to rediscovering the delights of the street outside, and of the idiots all around you.
Posted Mar 02, 2023
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Celine and Julie Go Boating
(1974)
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Phil Christman
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At a moment when so many of us feel that we’ve run through all of our strategies for surviving this strange sort of active stasis, this infinitely strange film about two mad women offers a vision of sanity.
Posted Mar 01, 2023
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Fabian: Going to the Dogs
(2021)
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Daniel Kasman
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Loose and a little wild, ragged on all its many edges, breakneck as the default speed of life, over gesticulating at times, enthralling at others.
Posted Feb 11, 2022
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Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn
(2021)
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Ela Bittencourt
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Radu Jude's latest meets and defies all and any expectations in a flurry of comedy and porn.
Posted May 17, 2021
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Tenet
(2020)
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Kelley Dong
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The scale of its spectacle suggests innovation; but Nolan's combination of the reverse motion with the cross cut, which he's dressed with trivial exposition, has all been done before.
Posted Sep 28, 2020
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Come and See
(1985)
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Jeremy Carr
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"...Come and See is a grueling masterwork..."
Posted Mar 10, 2020
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Sorry We Missed You
(2019)
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Leonardo Goi
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"In its plea for compassion and outrage, Sorry We Missed You is anything but apologetic: it's fierce, relentless, and devastating..."
Posted Mar 10, 2020
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Made in Hong Kong
(1997)
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Sean Gilman
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Its ultra-cheap production and effortless blending of genre film tropes with art house sensibilities mark[s] it as a successor to the classics of the Hong Kong New Wave...
Posted Mar 10, 2020
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The Strange Ones
(2017)
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Elissa Suh
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...a metaphysical horror that never quite comes to a head.
Posted Feb 28, 2020
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Most Beautiful Island
(2017)
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Elissa Suh
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Asensio sequesters us to loitering long-takes in this slowburn thriller that becomes a riveting fable of immigrant struggles.
Posted Feb 28, 2020
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I Am Another You
(2017)
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Elissa Suh
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Over-narrating and explicating his charisma in lieu of showing it, Wang's undertaking of roughing it in Florida proves unpalatable, difficult, and a bit problematic-though the film's third act will soon reveal why.
Posted Feb 28, 2020
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Gemini
(2017)
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Elissa Suh
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Gemini's utilization of professional (and in this case, underrated) actresses works to his advantage; the talented pair achieve an affinity sweet and enigmatic, cresting with the arch of an eyebrow or a longing gaze.
Posted Feb 28, 2020
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Princess Cyd
(2017)
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Elissa Suh
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The undervalued director confers a frank grace, letting each of these ideas collide and tangle, and rest among themselves-an exemplary feat of cinema, and one that ought to extend to the world.
Posted Feb 28, 2020
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Buster's Mal Heart
(2016)
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Elissa Suh
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Sarah Adina Smith teasingly dips to sci-fi, only to haphazardly scatter it all for the sake of philosophy. In lieu of a rule-bound universe, we get a smattering of quantum mechanics, apocalypse myths and a shaking fist at God and the Bible.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Flames
(2017)
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Elissa Suh
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With high potential to ruffle with its solipsism, Flames turns out to be cathartic and timely piece of performance art that might be the most representative of our society.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Thirst Street
(2017)
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Elissa Suh
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The film bestows us the opportunity for dialogue, as the best of cinema and many titles often do.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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A Suitable Girl
(2017)
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Elissa Suh
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[It] doesn't upbraid or rail against the practice of arranged marriage that is its central subject, but rather employs it as the context...it questions not, instead offering a clear-eyed and empathetic look into the process.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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The Circle
(2017)
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Elissa Suh
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James Ponsoldt's film is an egregious adaptation neutered of all the chilling entertainment of the Dave Eggers novel on which the film is based.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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The Lovers
(2017)
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Elissa Suh
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It serves as tender comedic fodder that proves the greater biting point the film makes about infidelity and monogamy. The film eviscerates the Hollywood sheen of middle-aged marrieds...
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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City of Ghosts
(2017)
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Elissa Suh
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City of Ghosts works urgently...the grainy and grisly images contrast deeply with the Islamic State's own slick filmic efforts that ironically and blatantly mimic the language of Hollywood movies with unsettling efficiency.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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For Ahkeem
(2017)
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Elissa Suh
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For Ahkeem poignantly unfolds with all the accouterments of a narrative film.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Shadowman
(2017)
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Elissa Suh
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A more traditional documentary, no less riveting...
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Flower
(2017)
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Elissa Suh
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...it is a shame that Max Winkler's debut, with its muddy gender politics, isn't a better film.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Abundant Acreage Available
(2017)
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Elissa Suh
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MacLachlan has a way of reducing his characters and, by his extension, viewers to children, as a way to keenly elicit our empathies, but at the risk of having his film feel too rudimentary.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Boundaries
(2018)
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Elissa Suh
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Writer-director Chloé Robichaud films in purposefully icy grays, but the film falls victim to its own drabness. Her characters are barely more than archetypes.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Sexy Durga
(2017)
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Elissa Suh
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Sasidharan, though a skilled craftsman, exploits these unknown variables for the sake of mood and tension.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Pendular
(2017)
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Elissa Suh
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Visual motifs and avant-garde fixtures pretend to obscure a digestible storyline concerning two artists in relation to their craft, success, and each other.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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The Fits
(2015)
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Elissa Suh
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The Fits exhibits a rhythm all its own as unique and spirited as the girls' dancing.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Donald Cried
(2016)
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Elissa Suh
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Avedisian maintains an even hand in depicting this oddball friendship and skirts sentimentalism in what turns out to be an amusing film.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Behemoth
(2015)
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Elissa Suh
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The obvious beauty of these images is bittersweet; we are gazing after all at what is now scorched earth, tilled by machinery and toiled over by humans, impoverished and exploited...
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Kill Me Please
(2015)
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Elissa Suh
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Mate-me por favor becomes muddled as Rocha da Silveira's bold direction takes on too many elements, including a not-so-fully formed allusion to an underbelly caused by rapid modernization in the wealthy neighborhood...
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Tikkun
(2015)
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Elissa Suh
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Tikkun is the more spiritual kind. The film's austere and provocative look contrasts with the dramatic excitement absent from the film's story-Tikkun's conflict concerns the soul-and compensates at times for its ponderous pacing.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Peter and the Farm
(2016)
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Elissa Suh
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Garrulous and cranky, roughened and wizened, farmer Peter Dunning wears a snowy Santa Claus beard and bears not only physical resemblance to Robin Williams, but also exhibits the actor-comedian's self-effacing humor...
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Happy Times Will Come Soon
(2016)
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Elissa Suh
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Comodin's film burns itself to your brain, just as a pair of sapphire-glazed eyes blaze deeply against the viridian dark.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Menashe
(2017)
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Elissa Suh
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Spoken entirely in Yiddish, Menashe is a sort of Kramer vs. Kramer of the Hasidic community in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Played by Menashe Lustig, the titular character proves immediately lovable, if not a mensch.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Autumn, Autumn
(2016)
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Elissa Suh
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At least for this viewer, there's something darkly lonesome about Autumn, Autumn
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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The Challenge
(2016)
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Elissa Suh
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A mystifying series of coy and curious impressions, The Challenge is also undeniably playful in its observation of collective and unseen preening.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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4 Days in France
(2016)
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Elissa Suh
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Reybaud's expertly ordered world is predicated on a genteel kindness, of strangers and Pierre alike, and starts to crack ever so slightly the further north he travels and the colder it gets.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Private Life
(2018)
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Elissa Suh
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With the masterful Private Life, Tamara Jenkins excavates without puncture, but small cuts can cause the most acute pain.
Posted Feb 27, 2020
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Ham on Rye
(2019)
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Linda Kersnerová
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To be completely direct, Ham on Rye is in fact wildly enjoyable. A little over two weeks' worth of time and a limited budget are rarely the elements for a movie as well put-together as this film.
Posted Jan 25, 2020
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Earth (Erde)
(2019)
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Daniel Kasman
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No mere glorification of nature's ambiance, it is instead a distressing dispatch of violent upheaval, capturing the magnitude of the displacement of earth on a massive scale...
Posted Jan 23, 2020
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I Wish I Knew
(2010)
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Sean Gilman
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Weaving a beautiful, dreamlike path through history, I Wish I Knew is less documentary as essay film than documentary as prose poem, its meandering reinforced by Lim Giong's delicate, melancholy score and Zhao Tao's presence...
Posted Jan 23, 2020
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3.5/5
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Black Christmas
(2019)
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Willow Maclay
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The #MeToo movement was a primal scream that rose up from the throats of women. Black Christmas is an echo of that initial feeling.
Posted Jan 03, 2020
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Atlantics
(2019)
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Kelli Weston
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[Diop] blends social realism with fantasy and horror into a boldly atmospheric production, a lyrical elegy equal parts mythic and phantasmagoric.
Posted Dec 20, 2019
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The Irishman
(2019)
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Forrest Cardamenis
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It...forces us to reconsider a body of work that is far more expansive than it is often given credit for by changing the template of his previous mob films and foregrounding questions of aging both in its text and its production.
Posted Dec 12, 2019
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5/5
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Halloween II
(2009)
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Willow Maclay
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This is a slasher film that aches. There is no enjoyment in the bloodshed here. Only sorrow and Zombie's attention to the psychological effects of violence prove masterful.
Posted Nov 04, 2019
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The Lighthouse
(2019)
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Leonardo Goi
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It is a relentless, intoxicating fight of two men fumbling after the light and receding deeper into darkness.
Posted Nov 01, 2019
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Starless Dreams
(2016)
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Tanner Tafelski
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...Oskouei's finest work yet.
Posted Oct 30, 2019
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Chained for Life
(2018)
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Caden Mark Gardner
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Often funny, consistently bizarre, surprisingly sweet, and resolutely provocative, there is perhaps no other American film released this year that meditates this intensely on what it means to feel seen in film.
Posted Oct 21, 2019
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Joker
(2019)
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Forrest Cardamenis
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Joker is replete with the signifiers of great cinema, all dialed up so heavily that they could denote parody if the film were not so serious.
Posted Oct 08, 2019
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