The 57th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival has concluded yet another wonderful week of cinematic discoveries. Previously announced awards were given to a variety of contributors to global cinema. Russell Crowe received the Crystal Globe For Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema, the Festival President’s Award For Contribution to Czech Cinematography was presented to Daniela Kolářová, and the Festival President’s Award was bestowed on Alicia Vikander, Ewan McGregor, and Robin Wright.

Continue reading Bulgarian Drama ‘Blaga’s Lessons’ Takes Top Prize: Full Karlovy Vary 2023 Award Winners at The Playlist.

Since producing Todd Haynes’ Sundance-winning drama “Poison” in 1991, Christine Vachon has helped bring some of the most unique and memorable independent films to the big – and small screen. Her work, which includes over 100 films and television projects, ranges from ushering in debut films from directors like Rose Troche and Mary Harron to Oscar dramas like “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Far From Heaven,” to prestige TV like HBO’s “Mildred Pierce” and Netflix’s “Halston.” Within her tremendous filmography, there is one common thread: Vachon has an eye for filmmakers with strong, clear artistic vision. 

Continue reading Christine Vachon: Todd Haynes & Pioneering Film Producer Talks ‘Past Lives’ & Cinema’s Indie Future [Karlovy Vary Interview] at The Playlist.

Winner of the Caméra d’Or for the best first feature film last month at the Cannes Film Festival, writer-director Pham Thien An’s “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell” is a deeply felt three-hour spiritual odyssey about grief in its many forms. 

READ MORE: ‘You Sing Loud, I Sing Louder’ Review: A Vulnerable Ewan McGregor Can’t Save This Father-Daughter Addiction Drama [Karlovy Vary]

An impressive tracking shot moves from a nighttime soccer game through a lively street in Saigon before settling on friends having send-off drinks for a member of the group who is forsaking the city for a simple life in the mountains.

Continue reading ‘Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell’ Review: Pham Thien An’s Caméra d’Or-Winning Drama Is A Meditative Spiritual Odyssey [Karlovy Vary] at The Playlist.

In the past decade or so, the country of Georgia has produced many raw and powerful films from women directors examining the country’s modern women as they seek their newfound independence. Director and co-writer Elene Naveriani’s romantic drama “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry” is a striking new entry to this film movement, anchored by a fierce and sensual performance from star Eka Chavleishvili.

READ MORE: ‘You Sing Loud, I Sing Louder’ Review: A Vulnerable Ewan McGregor Can’t Save This Father-Daughter Addiction Drama [Karlovy Vary]

Set in a remote village, Chavleishvili plays Etero, an earthy 48-year-old who cherishes her independence above all else.

Continue reading ‘Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry’ Review: Georgian Romantic Drama Is A Striking Ode To Female Independence [Karlovy Vary] at The Playlist.

There’s a fine line between stylized direction and direction that is so fussy that it gets in the way of a film’s actors. Unfortunately for Emma Westenberg’s directorial debut, “You Sing Loud, I Sing Louder,” that’s a line she does not navigate successfully. She’s not helped much by the underdeveloped script by Ruby Caster, who shares story credits with Vera Bulder and star-producer Clara McGregor (“American Horror Story”).

Continue reading ‘You Sing Loud, I Sing Louder’ Review: A Vulnerable Ewan McGregor Can’t Save This Father-Daughter Addiction Drama [Karlovy Vary] at The Playlist.

Boy meets girl is a tale as old as time and one that Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki has visited several times in a career that has spanned forty years, including in his latest romantic tragicomedy “Fallen Leaves.” His 20th feature film is a continuation of what’s been dubbed his Proletariat Trilogy, following “Shadows in Paradise,” “Ariel, “and “The Match Factory Girl.” While each film follows similar plotting, Kaurismäki places a direct emphasis on his unique working-class characters and a humanistic worldview, despite the external harshness of the world around them. 

Continue reading ‘Fallen Leaves’ Review: Aki Kaurismäki’s Romantic Tragicomedy Finds Love In A Hopeless Place [Karlovy Vary] at The Playlist.

After her return to the world of character-driven indie cinema last year with the drama “Causeway,” which she also produced, it seemed Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence had found her way back to the kind of grounded cinema on which she cut her teeth. Yet her latest film as star-producer, “No Hard Feelings,” directed by Gene Stupnitsky (“Good Boys, “Bad Teacher”), is about as hard a pivot as is cinematically possible.

Continue reading ‘No Hard Feelings’ Review: Jennifer Lawrence’s Raunchy, Cringey Comedy Wastes A Talented Cast at The Playlist.

While it doesn’t have the star power of Cannes, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is one of the most prestigious European film events of the year. And this year is no different, with a selection lineup that includes some of the best films making the festival rounds.

“It has been an incredible adventure for the programming team to get acquainted with this year’s state of the arthouse cinema via almost two thousand submissions.

Continue reading 57th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Unveils Official Selection, Patricia Clarkson Among Jury Members at The Playlist.

The Family, also known as the Santiniketan Park Association and the Great White Brotherhood, was an Australian New Age cult led by Anne Hamilton-Byrne, one of few women to ever lead a cult. Elements of this story inspired J. P. Pomare’s novel “In the Clearing,” which in turn is the basis for the new Hulu limited series “The Clearing,” co-created by Matt Cameron (“Baron”) and Elise McCredie (“Stateless”), with additional writing from Osamah Sami (“Ali’s Wedding”).

Continue reading ‘The Clearing’ Review: Teresa Palmer & Miranda Otto Can’t Save An Underwhelming Hulu TV Drama About Cults at The Playlist.

When people think of the desert of Southern California, they often think of Palm Springs with its grand mid century mansions, replete with sleek breeze blocks, teal atomic doors, and pool parties that go all night as the palm trees sway against the mountain landscape. It’s in this kind of idyllic space where we first meet Peggy (Patricia Arquette, “Severance”), in her desert finery hosting a Thanksgiving party for her extended family.

Continue reading ‘High Desert’ Review: Patricia Arquette Is Hilarious in Raymond Chandler-Esque Ode To Desert Weirdness at The Playlist.

About twenty minutes into the new Netflix thriller “The Mother,” star Jennifer Lopez locks eyes with a snarling, angry wolf in the snowy Alaskan wilderness. Just as Lopez raises her rifle, a bunch of cute wolf babies emerge from their snowy home. The wolf stops growling and runs over to her babies. The wolf represents Lopez in a heavy-handed metaphor that acts as a through-line for the overly-long, utterly preposterous movie.

Continue reading ‘The Mother’ Review: Jennifer Lopez Leads A Soulless Faux-Feminist Netflix Thriller at The Playlist.

Oscar winner Russell Crowe will receive the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinema at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The award-winning actor and director will also show off his musical talents with his band Indoor Garden Party, which will perform at the festival’s opening night concert on June 30th.

READ MORE: ‘Gladiator’: Russell Crowe Says Original Script For Oscar-Winning Film Was “Absolute Rubbish”

Since making his film debut in 1990, Crowe has starred in over fifty films, including Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator” which earned him the Oscar for Best Actor.

Continue reading Russell Crowe To Be Honored With Crystal Globe At 57th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival at The Playlist.

Taking its title from a quote with which Miep Gies, the woman who helped hide Anne Frank and her family in Amsterdam during WWII, often ended her speeches later in life, “A Small Light” is the latest engaging, richly detailed biographical drama from National Geographic.

Co-creators Joan Rater and Tony Phelan (“Grey’s Anatomy”) find a deeply humanist angle to this well-known piece of history by telling the story of Frank and her family through those who aided them.

Continue reading ‘A Small Light’ Review: A Richly Detailed Portrait Of Anne Frank Protector Miep Gies at The Playlist.

HBOMax’s “Love & Death,” the new true crime drama from prolific writer David E. Kelley (“Big Little Lies”), follows on the heels of last year’s Hulu miniseries “Candy,” which also told the story of Texas housewife Candy Montgomery (Elizabeth Olsen, “WandaVision”), who in the summer of 1980 was accused of brutally murdering her friend Betty Gore (Lily Rabe, “American Horror Story”) with an axe. 

Where “Candy” was a wonky black comedy about female rage and madness, “Love & Death” is a more straightforward drama that seeks to go deeper and understand the ordinary, small things in life that build up rage within someone and can burst through a moment of madness. 

Continue reading ‘Love & Death’ Review: Elizabeth Olsen & Lily Rabe Are Exquisite In HBO Max’s True Crime Drama at The Playlist.

The first “Murder Mystery” from 2019, written by James Vanderbilt (“Zodiac”), was a fun star-studded throwback to the 1980s Agatha Christie films like 1982’s “Evil Under the Sun,” with salt of the earth Brooklynites Nick and Audrey Spitz (Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston) thrown into the mix. The script was a smart, genre-savvy affair coupled with Sandler-style lowbrow comedy, a combination that almost worked, but was undone by the lackluster direction by Kyle Newacheck.

Continue reading “Murder Mystery 2” Review: Sandler and Aniston Feed The Rich In This Unnecessary Sequel at The Playlist.

With a show like “Yellowjackets,” where the mysteries are everything, you can’t reveal too much too soon. David Lynch and Mark Frost learned that lesson with “Twin Peaks,” a clear inspiration for Showtimes‘s hit series in terms of tone and setting, which solved its central question halfway through its second season and then quickly faltered for the remaining episodes (until, of course, the divine “The Return,” two decades later, which defied all conventions). 

READ MORE: New ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 2 Trailer: Showtime’s Cult Hit Series Returns On March 24, Premieres On-Air On March 26

Co-creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson said they envisioned their Showtime hit as a five-season series, and so far they are doing an excellent job of keeping up the momentum while also keeping the show as wild and weird as possible.

Continue reading ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 2 Remains Wild At Heart And Weird On Top [Review] at The Playlist.

Good romantic comedies have been a rare beast as of late. Lazy scripts, lackluster directing, and leads with no chemistry have plagued the genre in the last few years. Thankfully, every once in a while, a gem emerges. In this case, it’s writer-director Aline Brosh McKenna’s directorial debut “Your Place Or Mine” starring Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher that has come to resuscitate the rom-com. 

Continue reading ‘Your Place Or Mine’ Review: Reese Witherspoon & Ashton Kutcher Resuscitate the Rom-Com at The Playlist.

This is “a place of mountains and myths,” we’re told as a montage of Central Appalachian imagery fills the frame. The mists, buffalo, ferns, and flowing waters intercut with the coal-filled mountains and mining towns that grew up around them. Coal is intrinsic to the people of this region. Coal is made from many dead things crushed over a long period of time. This thought underscores the stark contrast between life and death that pulses throughout Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s impassioned documentary “King Coal,” artfully told through atmospheric narration and evocative editing. 

READ MORE: 25 Most Anticipated Films At The Sundance Film Festival

“This is what it’s like to live under King Coal,” she tells us.

Continue reading ‘King Coal’ Review: Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s Documentary Is An Atmospheric, Evocative Elegy For Central Appalachia [Sundance] at The Playlist.

Roger Ebert once wrote, “just because something is not done anymore doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing,” when describing Norman Jewison’s irrepressible romantic comedy “Only You.” This same sentiment can be applied to Angus MacLachlan’s latest family dramedy, “A Little Prayer,” a welcome throwback to adult-oriented movie fare of yore like “On Golden Pond,” “Fried Green Tomatoes,” or “Passion Fish.

Continue reading ‘A Little Prayer’ Review: David Strathairn and Jane Levy Shine In Angus MacLachlan’s Throwback Family Dramedy at The Playlist.

Based on the 2013 novel “A Marker to Measure Drift” by Alexander Maksik, set just after the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003, “Drift” aims for impressionistic insight but is ultimately manipulative and reductive. Maksik’s screenplay, which he co-wrote with Susanne Farrell, sees its heroine Jacqueline (Cynthia Erivo, “Harriet”) as nothing more than a vessel to explore an outsider’s view of the trauma inflicted by war.

Continue reading ‘Drift’ Review: Cynthia Erivo Stars In An Impressionistic, But Hollow Refugee Drama [Sundance] at The Playlist.

The thorny, complicated history between the United States and Iran is infinitely more complex for those of the Persian diaspora living in America. It’s this nuanced tension trickling down to identity — between being too much this and not enough that in either homeland — that writer-director-producer Maryam Keshavarz (“Circumstance”) explores in her third film, “The Persian Version,” a decades and generation-spanning dramedy.

Continue reading ‘The Persian Version’ Review: Maryam Keshavarz’s Dramedy Lacks Cohesion [Sundance] at The Playlist.

With her breakout turn as a soulful queer rancher in Kelly Reichardt’s “Certain Women,” Lily Gladstone proved herself to be one of the most unique and affecting performers of the last decade. Although she has worked steadily since it’s ridiculous that it’s taken this long for another role that really allows her tremendous talent to shine. 

READ MORE: 25 Most Anticipated Movies At The 2023 Sundance Film Festival

Co-written by director Erica Tremblay (“Reservation Dogs”), whose short “Little Chief” also starred Gladstone, and Miciana Alise, the family drama “Fancy Dance” explores the systematic mishandling by the police and the FBI of missing and murdered indigenous women.

Continue reading ‘Fancy Dance’ Review: Lily Gladstone Gives A Tremendous Performance In Indigenous Drama [Sundance] at The Playlist.

The horror genre is littered with creepy kid movies; some, like “The Babadook” and “Us,” are vastly better than others. Unfortunately, even with clear evocations of both those films, “Run Rabbit Run” by director Daina Reid (“Shining Girls”) and screenwriter Hannah Kent is not destined to be a classic of this sub-genre. Despite a solid performance from Sarah Snook (“Succession”), this Sundance midnight selection remains more of a premise than a fully fleshed-out feature, with thinly sketched characters and a heavy reliance on visual and sound clichés to make up for what it’s missing in actual chills.

Continue reading ‘Run Rabbit Run’ Review: Sarah Snook Is Wasted In A Cliché-Riddled Horror Dud [Sundance] at The Playlist.

Action-comedy “Shotgun Wedding,” Jennifer Lopez’s latest star vehicle, comes almost exactly a year after her other recent wedding-set romance “Marry Me”. In both films, Lopez portrays women finding their true love a bit late in life, yet like a modern Doris Day, the characters she plays are implied to be nearly 15 years younger than she actually is. As if a woman in her fifties couldn’t have these very experiences – something explicitly proven wrong by the star’s own personal life.

Continue reading ‘Shotgun Wedding’ Review: J. Lo Wedding Action-Comedy Is An Interminable Slog at The Playlist.

“You must show what’s unseen, but you cannot show too much either,” Mother Chiyo (Keiko Matsuzaka) explains to apprentice maiko Sumire (Natsuki Deguchi) about the delicate balance of expressing the story of a traditional mai dance. This same ethos permeates throughout the soft tone of the new Netflix series “The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House,” from acclaimed filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda.

Continue reading ‘The Makanai: Cooking For The Maiko House’ Season One Review: Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Netflix Show Is A Rich and Rewarding Experience at The Playlist.