With “Avengers: Endgame” already in the rear-view mirror (thought will no doubt continue to dominate into the new month), it’s odd to believe that the summer blockbuster season is really only just gearing up, with major releases hitting us each week. On top of the blockbuster commotion that is to come with a rather promising slate of high-profile films, there’s also the Cannes Film Festival coming up, which will no doubt give us a glimpse at what to look forward to for the remainder of the year.

Continue reading 12 Movies To See In May: ‘Aladdin,’ ‘Long Shot,’ ‘Rocketman’ & More at The Playlist.

This strange, deliberately naïve film plunges a high-concept romance into a banal, lifeless world. Therein lies profundity, but it makes for a disjointed, peculiarly shallow experience. Interiority is displaced; faces remain unmoved, difficult to parse; landscapes are sterile, otherworldly. “Asako I & II” testifies for the innate inadequacy of love and the a priori reality of manifold desire, of dirtied beauty, of mitigated intimacy. You can’t always get what you want.

Continue reading ‘Asako I & II’: A High-Concept Romance Falters [Rotterdam Review] at The Playlist.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced the main selections for the 2018 New York Film Festival, and it won’t disappoint the city’s cinephile community.  It also confirms that barring a last minute addition or secret screening there are no world premieres at this year’s NYFF.  Then again, the fest is programming a significant number of Foreign Language Film contenders even if the homegrown selections are slight.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite,” Alfonso Cuarón‘s “Roma“ and Julian Schabel‘s “At Eternity’s Gate“ were previously announced as the opening, centerpiece and closing night films for this year’s fest.

Continue reading ‘If Beale Street,’ ‘Cold War’ & ‘Ballad Of Buster Scruggs’ Among Main NYFF 2018 Selections at The Playlist.