This year brought 18 features and seven shorts, all presented with live musical accompaniment.
Crying with Laughter begins as a captivating character piece, only to turn into a breezy “mystery” thriller with plot holes.
The main thing that makes True/False so unspeakably awesome is that they do not care about premieres.
The funny, truthful character studies of the Duplass brothers fit right into the festival’s laidback yet professional vibe.
Despite various portraits of small- and large-scale influence and control, The Law is a tad too glossy and frivolous to truly plumb its stories’ suggested depths.
At least Melville was smart enough to focus on showing the “army of shadows” sweat while they waited for the other shoe to drop.
Welcome doesn’t even attempt to seriously tackle the thorny complications of France’s urgent immigration issues.
Following the left turn that was Red Lights, Regrets seems closer to familiar territory.
This year’s series offers up a comparably varied and geographically far flung group of pictures.
To say that OSS 117: Lost in Rio is a hideously distended continuation of OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies’s one-note joke would be unduly kind.
The film creates tension from the nagging sense that more urgency and surprise should be forthcoming from such an amazing tale.
Lucas Belvaux’s taut political thriller Rapt is a top-heavy but exceptional action film.
Sex matters, but knowing just how much matters more.
And Everything Is Going Fine is a fairly devastating gutpunch of a film.
The film displays Inoue’s strong directorial hand and perceptive eye for character and mood.
I loved La Vie au Ranch because it resisted the pull of a grand catharsis or some dramatic defining event.
In the world of Street Days everything is for sale, including personal relationships.
Benjamin Willen has an eerie, solemn presence, not depressed, but somehow blunted to any sense of a future.
Mama may have had more power if it had been a short film, the energy having no chance to dissipate as I felt it did here.
The filmmakers are committed to carrying on the tradition of Dogme 95.
Despite the beauty of those dead snakes, the message therein was a bit too on the nose for me.