Every Tuesday, discriminating viewers are confronted with a flurry of choices: new releases on disc and on-demand, vintage and original movies on any number of streaming platforms, catalog titles making a splash on Blu-ray or 4K. This weekly column sifts through all of those choices to pluck out the movies most worth your time, no matter how you’re watching. 

As the last of the spring theatrical releases finish the cycle to home video, we now get the Should’ve Beens – films that were all set to knock your socks off at the art houses after dazzling audiences at Sundance et.

Continue reading The 5 Best Movies To Buy Or Stream This Week: ‘Shirley,’ ‘Lady Bird’ & More at The Playlist.

Their first meeting does not go well. Shirley Jackson (Elisabeth Moss) writes with force and intensity, but when Rose (Odessa Young) approaches her at the summer house party to introduce herself and compliment her work, the writer is brittle, bitter, and distant. She is, we discover, both depressive and agoraphobic; she hasn’t left the house in longer than anyone can remember, and most days, she can barely get out of her bed. 

READ MORE: Here Are Our 25 Most Anticipated Sundance Premieres

She can’t keep up the home she shares with her husband, Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg), much less write anything new.

Continue reading ‘Shirley’: Josephine Decker Returns To The Rich Landscape Of The Fragile Mind [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

Look, making a Best of Decade list is an impossibility. As the 2010s come to a close, we’ve been agonizing over this (long-delayed) list for half a year now and even had to take a break and put it away this summer when things got too contentious and overwhelming. And then there’s the notion of resonance and what really lasts and is released too late (Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” is phenomenal, for example, but it’s not even released yet, and it’s just going to have to sit this one out).

Continue reading The 100 Best Films Of The Decade [2010s] at The Playlist.

The Playlist has never met a year we couldn’t exhaust with the endless examination, analysis, and decoding; it’s not that we love lists, it’s just in many banner years of cinema, there’s so much to pour over. 2018 was a stellar year for film and there were amazing movies to shout out, performances, new directors, breakout actors and actresses, documentaries, all kinds of new exciting talents and we genuinely can’t stop talking about them, honestly.

Continue reading The 25 Best Films Of 2018 You Didn’t See at The Playlist.

Movie marketing can be a weird thing to celebrate, no doubt. Posters, trailer and all kinds of promotional materials are selling tools explicitly designed to captivate (dupe?) the broadest, biggest audiences into attending your movie. These materials are created to attract the most mouth-breathing-friendly flies which usually means, big, dumb, loud and in the case of many posters, a healthy dose of criminal Photoshop abuse. Sometimes that means an overwrought collage-diarrhea on a superhero poster where it appears that one character is inevitably flatulating out an explosion, or the designer is just visually impaired, and sometimes it’s just the most egregious concept of all time.

Continue reading The 20 Best Movie Posters Of 2018 at The Playlist.

The 2018 Gotham Awards were honestly a bore to anyone watching the ceremony either live or streaming, but they had to be exciting for anyone sitting at A24’s tables.  The indie distributor took home five honors including Best Actor (Ethan Hawke, “First Reformed”),  Best Actress (Toni Collette, “Hereditary”), Best Screenplay (Paul Schrader, “First Reformed”), Breakthrough Director (Bo Burnham, “Eighth Grade”) and Breakthrough Actor (Elsie Fisher, “Eighth Grade”).  

Continue reading ‘The Rider’ Wins Best Feature As A24 Dominates The 2018 Gotham Awards at The Playlist.

Yet another reason why we need more feminine filmmaking voices…

On this episode of Adjust Your Tracking, Joe and I come of age (yet again) and put ourselves into a female perspective with indie releases ‘Madeline’s Madeline‘ and “Skate Kitchen.” Those films are slowly rolling out to arthouse theaters this month and soon after on VOD. And you should really pay attention to them and watch!

Continue reading ‘Madeline’s Madeline’ & ‘Skate Kitchen’ Are Two Damn Good Indie Films From Female Directors [Adjust Your Tracking] at The Playlist.

Josephine Decker’s “Madeline’s Madeline” is one of the most exciting movies of the year, immersing the audience in a exhilarating cauldron of daring theatrical roleplaying, teenage rebellion, and swirling, innovative film grammar. It’s an experiential arty indie film about the blurring of the boundaries between art and life and it pushes its experimentation and pretentious right to the edge of exasperation. But there’s also a thrilling passion in this kind of whimsical radicalism that teeters on going off the rails, but anxiously, and electrically stays on course.

Continue reading ‘Madeline’s Madeline’: Josephine Decker Talks The Spiritual Process Of Acting Troupes & More [Interview] at The Playlist.

With the flood of reports concerning the films going to fall festivals such as the Toronto International Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, and the Fantastic Fest, it’s difficult to pay much attention to the August film slate when we know that the month that follows signals great offerings along with Oscar season starting.

That being said, despite some slim pickings on the big budgeted, studio films, there’s plenty to choose from as the summer winds down, especially in the independent department.

Continue reading 13 Movies To Watch In August at The Playlist.

If you don’t know Josephine Decker, you soon will. Actor/writer/director extraordinaire, Decker has been weaving in and out of the independent film-scape for years, with films like “Flames” and “Thou Wast Mild And Lovely.” Her projects are vibrant, full of imagination and color. And as seen in the trailer for her latest project, there’s a child-like wonder evident that the director has curated her whole career.

Continue reading ‘Madeline’s Madeline’ Trailer: Helena Howard Dazzles In This Sundance Standout From Josephine Decker at The Playlist.

Sure, it’s still April, but summer is almost here. At least the summer movie season, which starts extra early this year thanks to Marvel’s early release of “Avengers Infinity War”—yep, blockbusters are even encroaching into the spring because that precious release date real estate is getting harder and harder to find. And summer means blockbusters and huge tentpoles, but for the eclectic, omnivorous filmgoer, there’s a variety of high, low and in the middle art to take in.

Continue reading Summer Movie Preview: 36 Films Worth The Watch at The Playlist.

PARK CITY – The first few minutes of Josephine Decker‘s “Madeline’s Madeline” immediately inform you that this is not going to be a conventional narrative in the slightest. A teenage girl, the Madeline in question, sashays her way into her family’s dining room where her mother patiently watches as she lays down on a credenza pretending to be a cat. Her mother indulges this behavior by going over and rubbing her head and stomach as she purrs.

Continue reading Helena Howard Is A Fury To Behold In Josephine Decker’s ‘Madeline’s Madeline’ [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.

We’re gonna need to load up on more brain food, because with Sundance kicking off today, we can barely keep track of what’s unspooling in Park City. Now, to add on top of that, the folks at the Berlin International Film Festival have unveiled a staggering 44 new films as part of their Forum lineup, 35 of which are World Premieres.

The section mixes features with avant garde, experimental works, essays, long-term observations, and political reportage, making it one of the more eclectic categories in Berlin.

Continue reading Berlin 2018 Adds New Films By Hong Sang-Soo, Sergei Loznitsa, Corneliu Poromboiu, Josephine Decker & More at The Playlist.

It’s the new year which means, there’s no rest for the wicked and the Sundance Film Festival is upon us. It’s funny how January is known as a dead time for movies — and it is for mainstream films — but in the realm of independent cinema, the first month of the year is that time when filmmakers are cramming to finish their Sundance-bound pictures.

READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2018

And the diverse, eclectic Sundance lineup runs the gamut.

Continue reading Sundance 2018: The Most Anticipated Films Of The Festival at The Playlist.

The Sundance Institute announced the initial slate for the 2018 Sundance Film Festival today and it was chock full of familiar faces to Park City (Kristen Stewart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Nick Offerman, Tessa Tompson, Jason Mitchell) and some highly acclaimed filmmakers (Debra Granik, Gus Van Sant, Joshua Marston). The festival announced a majority of its world premieres, but we’ve heard there will be a second round of premieres coming in December, but for now the U.S.

Continue reading 15 Most Anticipated New Films From The 2018 Sundance Film Festival at The Playlist.