Arnaud Desplechin doesn’t so much direct movies as conduct marathons.
A bodice-ripper invested with the profundity of a Stendhal novel, Lola Montès is also Max Ophüls’s definite commentary on movie-watching.
Matteo Garrone’s gangster-as-capitalist view never softens its focus a la Traffic or turn its executions into exploitative set pieces.
A preferable alternative would be watching Debbie Does Dallas while having Hershey’s Syrup squirted into my mouth.
As tepid peruke-and-corset periods go, The Duchess goes down with relative ease.
The film could be summed up in one word that would surely stump its protagonist: “Lugubrious.”
Steven Soderbergh’s immensely anticipated Che trains a cool head and a sharp eye on Che Guevara.
In Synecdoche, New York, Charlie Kaufman indulges all his thematic quirks like a dieting matron lunging at a box of bonbons.
A majestic package fit for the film that would make Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris swoon in unison.
The film illustrates not merely Ophüls’s unparalleled sense of flow and texture, but also his proto-feminism.
Atom Egoyan’s latest finds the director back in Canadian Traumaland after his Hollywood sojourn in Where the Truth Lies.
The ringside clashes, as befits the director of Requiem for a Dream, remain baroque visions of corporeal abuse.
Blindness feels less like a metaphor for urban isolation than just a zombie movie in which the zombies decided not to show up.
Fraternal auteurs aren’t having much critical support this year.
Appaloosa is horseshit, mostly.
Fears of The Sky Crawlers being overcome with Western tropes are dispelled as soon as Oshii Mamoru’s trademark, oddly grave pet beagle waddles on screen.
The film remains vital as an alert vision of corporate greed streaming into global imbalance.
Not particularly horror and not particularly classics, these overlooked films still warrant a look for the dedicated movie buff.
Twenty-Four Eyes, a hundred lumps in the throat. Beware of choking.
Keisuke Kinoshita’s film is not unlike one character’s description of the island weather: “Not too hot, not too cold.”