|
|
Phantom
(1922)
|
David Sterritt
|
Phantom is a fitting title for a story in which emotions are ruthless, motivations are slippery, and identity itself is dauntingly hard to pin down. This isn't exactly horror, but parts of it border on nightmare.
Posted Nov 11, 2021
|
|
|
Waxworks
(1924)
|
David Sterritt
|
[It] doesn't have quite as much élan nowadays as, say, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or Murnau's spectacular Faust, but retains enormous power as an exemplar of German Expressionism at its spooky, rambunctious best.
Posted May 20, 2021
|
|
|
Ingagi
(1930)
|
David Sterritt
|
Politically, ethnographically, and cinematically incorrect, it's a cautionary specimen of exploitation film at its most shamelessly exploitative.
Posted Mar 05, 2021
|
|
|
The Personal History of David Copperfield
(2019)
|
Graham Fuller
|
There are many reasons to praise Armando Iannucci's adaptation of Charles Dickens's The Personal History of David Copperfield...Iannucci's exuberant take on this classic Bildungsroman is doubly Dickensian...
Posted Nov 20, 2020
|
|
|
My Journey Through French Cinema
(2016)
|
David Sterritt
|
I mention Tavernier's varied background at the outset because his intimacy with every aspect of movie production, distribution, and exhibition shines through each installment of Journeys Through French Cinema.
Posted May 22, 2020
|
|
|
An Officer and a Spy
(2019)
|
Robert Koehler
|
The results are not just to thrust the past to the present, but to envelop the viewer in the thinking that defined that past.
Posted May 22, 2020
|
|
|
Parasite
(2019)
|
Robert Koehler
|
When the history of this moment in world cinema is written, Parasite will take its place as the movie that got the moment right.
Posted Feb 25, 2020
|
|
|
The Nightingale
(2018)
|
Graham Fuller
|
... it amply demonstrates in microcosm the inherent barbarity of the colonizing of the island...
Posted Sep 05, 2019
|
|
|
Border
(2018)
|
Darragh O'Donoghue
|
Border, therefore, is inevitably diminished on a second or informed first viewing. That said, it is still an impressive piece of work.
Posted Feb 28, 2019
|
|
|
The Favourite
(2018)
|
Robert Koehler
|
The movie singlehandedly upends decades of unimaginative habits by British filmmakers who have generally treated history as well-behaved pageants with period-perfect costumes and lavish settings.
Posted Feb 28, 2019
|
|
|
Cold War
(2018)
|
Jonathan Murray
|
A celluloid tribute to mid-twentieth-century jazz assumes jazzlike form itself, taking a title with powerful preexisting associations only to riff on and away from such things in highly individual and innovative ways.
Posted Nov 29, 2018
|
|
|
Angels Wear White
(2017)
|
Lux Chen
|
Angels adopts the gritty, documentary-style realism of Chinese independent cinema, using sharp, handheld images to depict the daily struggle of the underclass, but refuses to take women's fall from grace for granted.
Posted Sep 06, 2018
|
|
|
Chasing Madoff
(2011)
|
Maria Garcia
|
Chasing Madoff takes ninety-one minutes and delivers nothing more than what it hopes to pass off as the story of an unsung, working-class hero.
Posted Aug 21, 2018
|
|
|
Young Adult
(2011)
|
Maria Garcia
|
There is not much to admire in Young Adult in terms of originality in cinematography or production design.
Posted Aug 21, 2018
|
|
|
The House I Live In
(2012)
|
Maria Garcia
|
What makes The House I Live In so potent is the filmmaker's sincerity. Despite a preference for sweeping statements and conclusions, he establishes palpable emotional connections to several of his subjects who are victims of the war on drugs.
Posted Aug 21, 2018
|
|
|
Phantom Thread
(2017)
|
Richard Porton
|
Phantom Thread does not flaunt an easily digestible, on-the nose heartwarming message. Highly allusive in its propensity to quote, or pay tribute to, film history, Anderson's approach... does not offer his audience predigested verities.
Posted Jun 08, 2018
|
|
|
Call Me by Your Name
(2017)
|
Lawrence Garcia
|
Call Me By Your Name is made from small wonder, all the more impressive for being so seamlessly fused to an overall, unified vision.
Posted Dec 11, 2017
|
|
|
War Machine
(2017)
|
Glenn Heath Jr.
|
He deftly explores how cycles of human delusion help fuel failing foreign policies and rampant governmental hubris.
Posted Nov 07, 2017
|
|
|
Blade Runner 2049
(2017)
|
Robert Cashill
|
Blade Runner 2049 offers the reassurance of the familiar. Not bad, just not enough.
Posted Nov 07, 2017
|
|
|
Okja
(2017)
|
Rahul Hamid
|
The film's emotional through line is simple, though the plot is convoluted.
Posted Aug 30, 2017
|
|
|
Baby Driver
(2017)
|
Adam Nayman
|
Baby Driver is so poorly written on levels of plot, characterization and (especially) dialogue that Wright's typically first-rate craftsmanship fails to save it-and, in context, even becomes its own source of annoyance.
Posted Aug 30, 2017
|
|
|
Hell or High Water
(2016)
|
Thomas Doherty
|
The best Western since -- what? -- Unforgiven (1992)? Open Range (2003)? The elemental elements are all there, burnt into the film's hide like a brand, with no irony, no city slicker condescension
Posted Dec 27, 2016
|
|
|
American Honey
(2016)
|
Graham Fuller
|
As it traverses the hinterland, providing windows into various social classes, each of which is fair game for Krystal, American Honey becomes a kind of bitter allegory of the American Dream.
Posted Dec 12, 2016
|
|
|
A Bigger Splash
(2015)
|
Darragh O'Donoghue
|
[It's undone by] Guadagnino's would-be exhibitionist style; the narrative of A Bigger Splash hops tiresomely between the present drama and multiple "explanatory" flashbacks.
Posted Nov 15, 2016
|
|
|
The Neon Demon
(2016)
|
Adam Nayman
|
That everything is intended in bad taste is one thing; that it's all finally more bland than bitter is another.
Posted Nov 08, 2016
|
|
|
Academy of the Muses
(2015)
|
Aaron Cutler
|
The film's staged explorations of literature's effect on the psyche are ultimately revealing of the force held on the psyche by cinema, a medium with the power to preserve people as we once knew and possibly treasured them.
Posted Aug 30, 2016
|
|
|
Spotlight
(2015)
|
Thomas Doherty
|
In Spotlight, journalism is serious business. And -- not to bury the lede -- it plays less as a paean to a noble profession than an elegy to a set of practices that are as dead as the steam-powered printing press.
Posted Mar 02, 2016
|
|
|
Frost/Nixon
(2008)
|
Thomas Doherty
|
Fear not and have faith, the film assures us, television will do what the pathetic U.S. Constitution could not-put the malefactor on trial and render a just -- that is, guilty -- verdict, with the perp nailed in the witness chair.
Posted Dec 13, 2015
|
|
|
Carol
(2015)
|
Graham Fuller
|
The movie's sensory evocation of falling in love, with all its joys and miseries, is gender-blind; its critique of patriarchal power-hoarding and bourgeois repressiveness -- the Sirkian theme Haynes previously explored in Far from Heaven -- is timeless.
Posted Dec 13, 2015
|
|
3/4
|
The Sorcerers
(1967)
|
Robert Cashill
|
A truly chilling film.
Posted Dec 22, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
The Dark Knight Rises
(2012)
|
Robert Cashill
|
Does Rises rise to the occasion? I'd say it depends on where you're invested, but it's pleasantly straightforward.
Posted Jul 19, 2012
|
|
3/4
|
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
(2010)
|
Robert Cashill
|
An interview with Guillermo del Toro and Guy Pearce.
Posted Aug 30, 2011
|
|
3/4
|
Bellflower
(2011)
|
Robert Cashill
|
One of the most intriguing movies around, at once knife-edged and tender, ablaze with flaming imagery and a thrashing soundtrack, and more ambitious than films with far greater resources at their disposal.
Posted Aug 01, 2011
|
|
2.5
|
Stake Land
(2010)
|
Robert Cashill
|
Not bad but leaves its best ideas by the side of the road.
Posted May 10, 2011
|
|
4/4
|
Splice
(2009)
|
Robert Cashill
|
More than the sum of its spare parts.
Posted Jan 24, 2011
|
|
8/10
|
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
(2009)
|
Christopher Long
|
Iguanas aside, Cage's performance is the film's centerpiece. He starts at over the top and climbs ever higher...
Posted May 02, 2010
|
|
3/4
|
King Kong
(2005)
|
Robert Cashill
|
Twas beauty killed the beast? No. Twas Silicon Graphics.
Posted Jun 18, 2008
|
>
