Todd Haynes’ biopic “I’m Not There” famously featured several actors in the role of Bob Dylan, each embodying the artist in one era of his varied musical career. The idea, of course, was to acknowledge Dylan’s shapeshifting nature as well as the fact that his work can mean different things to different people — some may find one actor’s interpretation more convincing and accurate than that of another.

Continue reading ‘Daaaaaali!’ Review: Quentin Dupieux’s Eye For The Beautiful & Absurd Finds Its Perfect Subject In The Spanish Artist [Venice] at The Playlist.

The Huston dynasty has produced so many raw, undeniable talents that its younger members are undoubtedly among the very few “nepo babies” who can still come out of that exhausting discourse unscathed. We may even feel pity for them, sometimes, living as they do in the shadows of so many brilliant relatives. But Jack Huston is only the latest in a series of descendants to show that this legacy seems a blessing rather than a curse, at least in terms of creativity.

Continue reading ‘Day Of The Fight’ Review: Jack Huston Harnesses The Poetic Power Of Boxing Movies In A Stylish Feature Debut [Venice] at The Playlist.

That Glen Powell is a gem of an actor is nothing new, but twenty years into his career, and after stealing the show in a bunch of films and series, we can all finally stop praying for him to get a leading role worthy of his talents. In “Hit Man,” Powell reunites with his “Everybody Wants Some!!” director Richard Linklater for a part that allows him to be by turns nerdy, sexy, and funny, but at all times almost unbearably charming.

Continue reading ‘Hit Man’ Review: Glen Powell Stars In Richard Linklater’s Sexy, Delightful Comedy Tailored To His Talents [Venice] at The Playlist.

I remember reading years ago that whenever the time comes for Woody Allen to make a new film, he opens a drawer in his desk and picks at random from the piles of scripts he has written over the years. If this is true, it would explain much of the impersonal and artificial quality of his later output, which, though hitting all the beats expected of his personal brand of cinema, is so clunky and clumsily put together as to feel like a joke at the expense of the people who still bother to watch his work. 

Continue reading ‘Coup De Chance’ Review: Woody Allen’s Clumsy But Passable Dramedy Is More Mediocrity From His Waning Late-Stage Period [Venice] at The Playlist.

The most powerful aspect of Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla,” premiering in Competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival, is in the title: to focus on Priscilla Presley, née Wagner, formerly Beaulieu, is to show a side of a marriage and of the King himself less familiar than and in some ways different from the romantic popular legend. But Coppola’s film does much more than simply show us the facts of how a fourteen-year-old girl gets to become the girlfriend and then wife of one of the biggest artists of all time.

Continue reading ‘Priscilla’ Review: Sofia Coppola’s Understated Biopic Lets Us Draw Our Own Conclusions [Venice] at The Playlist.

A quote by William Friedkin himself opens “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial,” describing the film, as well as all the filmmaker’s other works, as being about “the thin line between good and evil.” This line is all the thinner here, in the American director’s final feature, for it is entirely a matter of opinion. We are not given to see the facts of this story as they unfolded; we cannot watch and make up our own minds as to whether the people involved were right or wrong to act the way they did.

Continue reading ‘The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial’ Review: William Friedkin’s Deceptively Simple Swansong Is Another Morbid Excavation Of Human Weakness & Cruelty [Venice] at The Playlist.

Ten years after “Spring Breakers,” the neon pinks and greens of Harmony Korine’s mainstream breakthrough return in an Internet-inflected and even more abstract ode to the thug life, with seriously mixed results. To call “Aggro Dr1ft” stupid or silly isn’t wrong, but it is missing the point. The dialogue is incredibly banal and hilariously repetitive, the story a thin assemblage of clichés. But the images!

Continue reading ‘Aggro Dr1ft’ Review: Harmony Korine Goes Sicko Mode In A Visually Stunning Journey Through Miami Thug Life  [Venice] at The Playlist.

Mads Mikkelsen has proved time and again a master at playing quiet, rational, and seemingly harmless men who, when pushed, swiftly reveal themselves also to be skilled executioners; their pent-up rage does not bubble up so much as shoot out of them in sudden bursts of ultraviolence. Mikkelsen proves it once more in “The Promised Land,” the new period drama that reunites him with his “A Royal Affair” Danish director Nikolaj Arcel, and premieres in competition at the 80th Venice Film Festival this week.

Continue reading ‘The Promised Land’ Review: Mads Mikkelsen Grows Potatoes & Feelings Against All Odds in Handsome Danish Historical Drama at The Playlist.

Watching Michael Mann’s “Ferrari,” one may wonder whether it’s even possible to make a film about an Italian figure and have it not be at least 80% about style. An admittedly rather inane thought, but one made a little more legitimate by the central presence of Adam Driver as the titular Enzo Ferrari. The American actor now plays an Italian figure for the second time, but his performance here, to a much higher degree than in Ridley Scott’s “House of Gucci,” truly does revolve around giving the appearance of possessing some kind of Italian essence.

Continue reading ‘Ferrari’ Review: Style & Business Overtake Emotion In Michael Mann’s Biopic About The Italian Automobile Tycoon [Venice] at The Playlist.

It would be nice to think that desires are nothing more than preferences, springing organically from a fixed identity and unaffected by outside circumstances such as personal history and societal norms. The reality is, of course, much thornier, and trying to disentangle the many different factors influencing our tastes and longings can quickly cause a lot of suffering. The complex question of nature vs. nurture represents one of vanishingly few areas of human life still infused with mystery and resisting essentialist, restrictive impulses; it can be cause for both horror and wonder.

Continue reading ‘Last Summer’ Review: Catherine Breillat’s Devastating Drama Exposes Bourgeois Amorality [Cannes] at The Playlist.

There has been a lot of talk in recent years about cooking as a form of care, an idea intrinsically linked to the feminist revaluation of the work usually performed by women, which is most often unremunerated yet essential to day-to-day living. In cinema, this has translated to a surge of interest among film writers around the place and representation of cooking and eating on screen; a focus that represents another avenue for reclaiming a place for women within cinema, and, more generally, for recognizing that dynamics of care (as opposed to violence or exploitation) are all around us already, if we only look. 

Continue reading ‘The Pot-Au-Feu’ Review: Tran Anh Hung Returns With An Awe-Inspiring Ode To Pleasure In All Its Forms [Cannes] at The Playlist.

Michel Gondry’s new film “The Book of Solutions,” playing in Directors’ Fortnight at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, centers on the torturous life of being a creative filmmaker and begins at the heart of the matter: Marcc(Pierre Niney) is in a meeting with the producers of his new film, and they are unhappy with what he has delivered them. They’re ending the shoot, putting a new editor in charge to salvage what is already there, and his producing partner of many years finally turns his back on him.

Continue reading ‘The Book Of Solutions’ Review: Michel Gondry’s Hilarious & Meta Film About Unbridled Creation Is A Shot Of Happiness & Warmth [Cannes] at The Playlist.

Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” playing in Competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, begins with an interview between a writer and a student interested in her work. It’s a lighthearted, almost flirty discussion where double entendres are part of a seemingly harmless game. It is pleasurable for Sandra (Sandra Hüller), the writer flattered by the attention, but also for us, the audience, as Triet’s writing always is: casual yet precise, revealing of characters’ personalities but always awake to the degree of performance in their behavior — in short, utterly believable and thrillingly human.

Continue reading ‘Anatomy Of A Fall’ Review: Words Shape Reality In Justine Triet’s Gripping Masterpiece [Cannes] at The Playlist.

At its best moments, the extremely straightforward construction of Cédric Kahn’s “The Goldman Case” allows for fascinating dynamics and images to occur apparently unforced, as if by themselves, for the viewer to seize on their own. The film, which has just opened the Directors’ Fortnight section of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, is refreshing for this bared-down, almost documentary-like approach — especially because it focuses on an incredibly complex man who needs all the space he can get to show everything that he is, in all his apparent contradictions. 

READ MORE: 2023 Cannes Film Festival: 21 Must-See Movies To Watch

This revelation takes place progressively, over the course of the almost surgically precise and aggressive trial that takes up most of the film’s runtime.

Continue reading ‘The Goldman Case’ Review: A Refreshingly Unfussy Procedural That Could Still Go Deeper [Cannes] at The Playlist.

The use of body horror allegories in cinema to address the physical, physiological, and mental changes brought on by puberty could hardly be called original. However, by delightfully and intelligently remixing symbols and metaphors Malaysian director Amanda Nell Eu refreshes the concept in her zesty debut feature “Tiger Stripes.” 

The term “body horror” could in fact be considered a misnomer in this case, as our fierce lead protagonist Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal) doesn’t undergo anything as monstrous as growing a car in her belly or a biogun out of her hand.

Continue reading ‘Tiger Stripes’ Review: Zesty Malaysian Coming-Of-Age Tale Of Emancipation Intelligently Remixes Metaphors [Cannes] at The Playlist.

The soft pink and beige background on the red carpet of this year’s Oscars ceremony echoed the generally much more mellow tone of the evening than we have been used to in the recent past. If last year’s event was one of the most disjointed and chaotic in years, the 2023 evening hosted by Jimmy Kimmel was reassuringly smooth sailing, starting with a (for my money) genuinely funny and charming opening set of jokes.

Continue reading Analyze This: Why ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ Won The 2023 Best Picture Oscar at The Playlist.

Iranian director Jafar Panahi has been incarcerated since July 2022 for “propaganda against the system” after he visited authorities to inquire about another detained filmmaker, Mohammad Rasoulof. This is far from Panahi’s first brush with a repressive system that has been trying to silence him for years, and the director is perhaps better known for his ability to make films despite these unfair odds than for the films themselves.

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2022

It’s a reality all the more frustrating and bittersweet for a filmmaker as imaginative and bold as Panahi — it is heartbreaking to imagine just what he could do if he were free.

Continue reading ‘No Bears’ Review: Jafar Panahi’s Nifty Meta Exercise Packs An Emotional Punch at The Playlist.

With Italy not being a nation typically associated with progressive views and attitudes regarding sexuality, it was reassuring to hear the largely local crowd at the “Lord of the Ants” press screening of the Venice Film Festival laugh at the preposterous words of an ultra-religious woman on screen talking about how she “cured” her son from homosexuality by sending him to a saint. Whether the scene was intended to provoke that reaction is another story.

Continue reading ‘Lord Of The Ants’ Review: Even Elio Germano Cannot Save This Plodding Historical Drama [Venice] at The Playlist.

The tragedy at the center of “Love Life,” the new film from Japanese director Kōji Fukada which premieres in Competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival, does not come to disrupt a perfectly happy family. Cracks are visible in the facade of the life shared by Taeko (Fumino Kimura) and Jiro (Kento Nagayama) even before the fatal accident that claims the life of Keita (Tetta Shimada), her young son from a previous marriage.

Continue reading ‘Love Life’ Review: Kōji Fukada’s Film Is An Uneven Melodrama On Grief And Intimacy [Venice] at The Playlist.

Simply put, Lena Dunham’s “Sharp Stick” is a film about sex. But sex for a very naive, innocent, fearless, infertile, 26-year-old virgin woman is more than just sex, and the implications of the many encounters and decisions made by Sarah Jo (the luminous Kristine Froseth) on her journey of self-discovery can be dizzying in their sheer number and magnitude. Dunham, however, seemingly unperturbed by the vertiginous stakes of her creation, follows her heroine with inspiring patience and compassion, in a refreshingly loose and lo-fi film where each element gels so well with the others that it is hard to imagine the film didn’t simply emerge fully formed.

Continue reading ‘Sharp Stick’: Lena Dunham Talks Sex, Diane Keaton & Her Provocative New Coming Of Age Fairytale at The Playlist.

Filmmakers seeking to denounce the crushing effects of capitalism often seem to rely on the excuse that if their films aren’t subtle, it’s because capitalism itself isn’t either. But such systems of exploitation probably wouldn’t still be around if, on top of having (very visible, obvious, violent) power on their side, the powers that be didn’t perniciously plant their hooks into the minds and hearts of their victims, making them do most of the work for them.

Continue reading ‘Next Sohee’: Doona Bae Can’t Really Save July Jung’s Look At Worker Exploitation [Cannes] at The Playlist.

Unlike most films and series set in Naples, “Nostalgia” really does show us the city like we’ve never seen it before: from the melancholy perspective of someone who left forty years ago. Italian director Mario Martone makes the astute and powerful decision not to make this immediately obvious, opening the film with a stunning sequence showing a man (Pierfrancesco Favino) silently arrive in and explore the city at night.

Continue reading ‘Nostalgia’ Review: Mario Martone’s Formally Stunning Film Shows Naples In A Different, Touching Light at The Playlist.

Directed by Louis Garrel, son of revered arthouse director Philippe, “The Innocent” is a quintessentially French comedy whose principle aim is to be a fun time. Though this may seem a relatively modest ambition, we all know it isn’t easy to do well, and Garrel certainly does not make things any simpler for himself as the film repeatedly leaves the realm of the bon mot to veer on the farcical.

Continue reading ‘The Innocent’ Review: Louis Garrel’s Crime, Comedy, Romance Caper Is Breezy, Elegant Fun [Cannes] at The Playlist.

As countries go, Iceland is probably one of the most fast-changing in terms of its biological make up, its intense volcanic activities reshaping its surface and contours at a speed fast enough to be perceived within a single generation. Paradoxically, it is also a place where time appears to stand still, with the sun omnipresent for half the year and absent for the rest. Hlynur Pálmason’s “Godland” is in tune with both contrasting realities, and the film’s very long takes feel extremely rich with meaning and texture even as they often show a whole lot of nothing. 

These different temporalities are also embodied in the objective of Lucas (Elliott Crosset Hove), a Danish priest sent to Iceland to build a church there and photograph some of the people of the island.

Continue reading ‘Godland’ Review: Hlynur Pálmason’s Hypnotic, Spiritual, Slow-Cinema Look At 19th Century Iceland [Cannes] at The Playlist.

Based on her own time spent in the acting school Les Amandiers, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s “Forever Young” aims to recreate a very specific time and place both in her life and in France, more than it cares to inform her audience about what, exactly, was so special about this school. Funded in the 1980s by Patrice Chéreau, a successful and daring director of theatre, opera and film, Les Amandiers did not last very long but for a few years it was considered to be one of the most exciting places in France and even Europe for young actors to develop their crafts, and for directors to find new talent. 

Some, but not all, of this information can be gleaned from the film itself, and giving viewers a real feeling of its place and reputation at the time would have raised the stakes considerably.

Continue reading ‘Forever Young’ Review: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s Tempestuous Romance Is Passionate, But Remote [Cannes] at The Playlist.