If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins, 2018)
How can one adapt James Baldwin's prose for the screen? How can you hope to retain that hard, mournful poetry?...
2018-12-19 05:01:14 +0000 UTC View Post
msicism posts
Roma (Alfonso Cuarón, 2018)
Roma is fine. At first I was rather irritated by Cuarón's insistence on cramming the film wit...
2018-12-17 21:58:44 +0000 UTC View PostThe House That Jack Built (Lars von Trier, 2018)
A good friend of mine, cinephile Ryan Wu, once compared Lars von Trier's Dogville to a beautifully ba...
2018-12-17 00:54:38 +0000 UTC View PostDead Souls (Wang Bing, 2018)
I have already logged a review of this film in my coverage of TIFF Wavelengths 2018, based on having watched f...
2018-12-17 00:11:08 +0000 UTC View PostTerror Nullius (Soda_Jerk, 2018)
Any halfway decent critic should admit when he or she is out of their depth, and the truth is I am pain...
2018-12-13 22:48:02 +0000 UTC View PostShoutout to BlacKkKlansman...
...for a throwaway reference to these ads from the 1970s.
2018-12-13 19:29:54 +0000 UTC View PostUnder the Silver Lake (David Robert Mitchell, 2018)
David Robert Mitchell is not an intuitive filmmaker, but that is no vice in itself. It Follows demons...
2018-12-13 16:11:06 +0000 UTC View PostOscar Season Lightning Round 3!
The Miseducation of Cameron Post (Desiree Akhavan, 2018)
I should begin by stating for ...
2018-12-13 11:51:46 +0000 UTC View PostThe Wild Boys (Bertrand Mandico, 2017)
The "wild boys" are women.
(That's a "spoiler," but it's clear.)
Mandico plays with gender but
... 2018-12-12 17:05:43 +0000 UTC View PostBlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018)
Aside from its other virtues, Spike Lee's newest film serves as a scathing antidote to everything that is wron...
2018-12-12 13:20:16 +0000 UTC View PostVice (Adam McKay, 2018)
DO NOT READ UNTIL CHRISTMAS!
Maybe Adam McKay is the Brechtian filmmaker we deserve. I ...
2018-12-12 02:54:58 +0000 UTC View PostThe Other Side of the Wind (Orson Welles, 1975/2018)
Could this possibly be more interesting than an officially "completed" version by Welles? It's hard to say exa...
2018-12-12 02:34:45 +0000 UTC View PostThe Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018)
Another film, like Happy as Lazzaro, that I found myself admiring more than liking, although I certai...
2018-12-10 22:51:58 +0000 UTC View PostTreasure Island (Guillaume Brac, 2018)
I discovered French director Guillaume Brac several years ago when two very different cinephiles, director Dan...
2018-12-10 04:02:08 +0000 UTC View PostHappy as Lazzaro (Alice Rohrwacher, 2018)
Happy as Lazzaro shares some clear stylistic affinities with Rohrwacher's previous film The Wonde...
2018-12-10 03:47:01 +0000 UTC View PostNow, At Last (Ben Rivers, 2018)
British experimentalist Ben Rivers has produced some highly unusual films in his career, but nothing in...
2018-12-06 23:32:39 +0000 UTC View PostBlack Mother (Khalik Allah, 2018)
One of the major surprises of 2015 was Field Niggas, Khalik Allah's gorgeous, haunting experimental f...
2018-12-06 23:18:43 +0000 UTC View PostWhite Heart (Daniel Barnett, 1975)
One of those canonical titles that has been out of circulation for years, Daniel Barnett's White Heart 2018-12-03 23:12:15 +0000 UTC View Post
Donbass (Sergei Loznitsa, 2018)
When the lineup was announced for the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, there were some of us who were wondering why ...
2018-12-02 15:39:03 +0000 UTC View PostOscar Season Lightning Round 2!
Green Book (Peter Farrelly, 2018)
There they are, our two mismatched heroes, enjoying a...
2018-12-02 15:08:47 +0000 UTC View PostOscar Season Lightning Round!
As you know, I try to provide you with High-Quality Web Content (SM) on a regular basis. But it's that time of...
2018-12-02 14:24:28 +0000 UTC View PostJinpa (Pema Tseden, 2018)
A moderately upbeat, even Jarmuschian fable from Tibet's leading auteur, Jinpa takes its name from it...
2018-11-25 17:50:09 +0000 UTC View PostCan You Ever Forgive Me? (Marielle Heller, 2018)
"Well," as my lovely wife Jen put it, "they can't all be F For Fake." Quite right. There's nothing pa...
2018-11-25 15:10:19 +0000 UTC View PostA Star Is Born (Bradley Cooper, 2018) / The Great Willow Maclay
I don't have a great deal to say about this film. Overall I was impressed with Cooper's pacing and direction, ...
2018-11-24 03:14:46 +0000 UTC View PostThe Little Stranger (Lenny Abrahamson, 2018)
[NOTE: This post contains spoilers]
Certainly one of the year's most mismarketed films,...
2018-11-24 02:48:42 +0000 UTC View PostThe Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 2018)
When I first attempted to sum up the latest film by the Coen Brothers, my overall takeaway (with which I am no...
2018-11-21 17:57:26 +0000 UTC View PostDon't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot (Gus Van Sant, 2018)
A curious film. As I watched, I found myself wondering what my friends who are in Disability Studies would mak...
2018-11-19 22:30:29 +0000 UTC View PostThey Shall Not Grow Old (Peter Jackson, 2018)
Despite all the hype, Jackson's colorization of the footage from the Great War is really the least impressive ...
2018-11-18 05:53:44 +0000 UTC View PostPedestrian At Best (Part Three: The Quickening)
Okay, this one's for real.
I realized that there were some anomalies in the previous lists. For one thin...
2018-11-15 05:07:11 +0000 UTC View PostPedestrian At Best (Part Two)
Well, for some reason, making selections from N-Z was not nearly as difficult as A-M was. So I went ahead and ...
2018-11-13 01:46:09 +0000 UTC View Post