There’s nothing sweet about Saccharine, but just as it should be gaining traction, nothing terribly coherent about it either. Natalie Erika James throws a bunch of great ideas…
Read more ‘Saccharine’ Review: Midori Francis Navigates the Hallucinatory Minefield Between Body Image and Body Horror in Messy Weight-Loss FreakoutAfter the death of her husband, Emily (Kelly Marie Tran) doesn’t know what to do. Her daughter Gracie (Aria Kim) hasn’t spoken in the six months since her…
Read more ‘Rock Springs’ Review: Kelly Marie Tran and Benedict Wong in a Fresh, Vivid Spin on Grief HorrorOf the many insights into turbulent genius Courtney Love in Brit filmmakers Edward Lovelace and James Hall’s adoring biographical doc Antiheroine, the most captivating is the alt rock…
Read more ‘Antiheroine’ Review: Courtney Love Comes Clean About Highs, Lows and Needing to Be Heard in a Rock Doc Both Raucous and IntimateRarely does an opening song choice so precisely define the mood of a film like LCD Soundsystem’s exquisitely tortured anthem “New York, I Love You but You’re Bringing…
Read more ‘The Only Living Pickpocket in New York’ Review: John Turturro Mesmerizes as a Small-Time Hustler Facing Obsolescence in Fine-Grained Crime ThrillerWhile the happy and only barely tortured gay romance of Heated Rivalry sweeps the nation, nay the world, it might be instructive, if depressing, to remind ourselves that…
Read more ‘Leviticus’ Review: A Sad, Frightening Conversion-Therapy Horror From AustraliaA mother-son road movie more laced with humor than laden with trauma, Hot Water marks a warm and sensitive, if not entirely satisfying, debut feature from Ramzi Bashour.…
Read more ‘Hot Water’ Review: Lubna Azabal and Daniel Zolghadri Go West in a Slight but Sensitive Mother-Son Road MovieWatching Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev’s visually confident, intellectually insecure documentary Porcelain War is like listening to a recitation from a brilliant poet while somebody sitting next to…
Read more ‘Porcelain War’ Review: Intimate Reflection on Making Art in Wartime Ukraine Is Beautiful but FrustratingKlaudia Reynicke’s compact feature Reinas deals in intimate moments with an understated charm. The film, which premiered in the World Cinema Dramatic competition at Sundance, takes place in…
Read more ‘Reinas’ Review: An Understated Portrait of a Peruvian Family Navigating Political TurmoilIn his feature directorial debut, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Chiwetel Ejiofor crafted a humanizing portrait of a gifted Malawian boy who saves his village from famine…
Read more ‘Rob Peace’ Review: Chiwetel Ejiofor Crafts a Conventional but Stirring True Story of Talent, Struggle and TragedyIf you follow the news, you’d think that AI is going to take over every activity we formerly thought of as “human,” perhaps by the time you finish…
Read more ‘Love Machina’ Review: Provocative but Unfocused Doc Tackles Romance and RoboticsIf it takes doing an MCU movie, with all the corporate constrictions that entails, to plunge into the kind of exhilarating creative exorcism that Freaky Tales represents, then…
Read more ‘Freaky Tales’ Review: Pedro Pascal and Ben Mendelsohn in an Electrifying Salute to Late ‘80s Oakland Pop Culture That’s Hella Fun
