Festivals: New York Film Fest
New York 2024 Review: WHO BY FIRE (COMME LE FEU), Bad Times at the Cabin in the Woods
Does anything good ever come out of vacationing in the woods? In genre cinema, going away for a weekend to a remote location is a recipe for all kinds of unpleasantness to happen. In festival dramas – eh, it usually...
New York 2024 Review: SUBURBAN FURY, The Truth is Still Out There in This Captivating Documentary Thriller
Even with all the collective force of human imagination, evidenced by books, scripts and conspiracy theories, nothing can be as wonderfully and sometimes scarily incredible as reality. Some history lessons, even seemingly lesser ones, are so genuinely wild it’s hard...
New York 2024 Review: TRANSAMAZONIA, Uneven But Poignant Coming-of-Age Story
A plane crashes in the Amazon jungle leaving a sole survivor, a five-year-old child named Rebecca, who is then saved just in time by an Indigenous Iruaté man. Nine years pass, and Rebecca (Helena Zengel) is now widely known as...
New York 2024 Interview: Paul Schrader on Realizing Russell Banks' OH, CANADA
In Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada, adapted from Russell Banks’ Foregone, a renowned documentary filmmaker named Leonard Fife subjects himself to a filmed interview while battling the throes of death. This final interview, to be captured by a former pupil turned...
New York 2024 Review: THE DAMNED (IL DANNATI), Neorealist Anti-Western About the Senselessness of War
Roberto Minervini’s new film, which premiered earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival, is the second feature in this festival round to be titled The Damned. Another movie with the same English-language title, directed by Thordur Palsson and featured...
New York 2024 Review: PAVEMENTS Has Great Fun Selling Out
In the romanticizing of 90s indie music, it's oft said that no band better epitomized the rock & roll slacker ethos of rebelling against establishment/commercialism/‘whatever else ya got’/etc. than Pavement. If true enough, then how exactly do you make a...
New York 2024 Review: LITTLE, BIG, AND FAR Conjures Up Celestial Music
Jem Cohen makes a gentle inquiry to human connections while presenting it within the bigger picture; in this case, the universe.
New York 2024 Review: CAUGHT BY THE TIDES, Time Passing, Observed Silently
Jia finally makes a silent movie star out of Zhao Tao.
New York 2024 Review: STRANGER EYES, Sex, Lies, and Videotape
When a little girl vanishes straight from the playground, her parents Junyang (Wu Chien-ho) and Peiying (Anicca Panna) start a search that doesn’t provide any leads. That is, until they start getting DVDs with the footage of the family doing...
New York 2024 Review: APRIL, A Strange Manifestation
Dea Kulumbegashvili's second feature is a challenging, feminist work, to say the least.
New York 2024 Review: THE SEED OF THE SACRED FIG, Striking Tale of Violence and Moral Compromises
Iman (Misagh Zare) has just gotten the much-desired promotion, but asks his family to keep quiet about his new job: he is now an investigating judge in the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. So, while the very real protests against the...
New York 2024 Review: NO OTHER LAND Chronicles Living Under Occupation
The suffering of people in this film is staggering, but so is their resilience.
New York 2024 Review: AFTERNOONS OF SOLITUDE, A Cock and Bull Story
Albert Serra's aim is capturing the purity.
New York 2024 Review: A TRAVELER'S NEEDS, Living Life Truthfully
The second collaboration of Hong Sangsoo and Isabelle Huppert is a delight.
New York 2024 Review: SCENARIOS, Adieu Cinema, Adieu Godard
End of Godard, End of Cinema
New York 2024 Review: DAHOMEY, On Putting Souls Back
Mati Diop documents the repatriation of stolen African treasures from France.
New York 2024 Review: In NICKEL BOYS, the POV Conceit Disappoints
RaMell Ross directed. For a subject this weighty, though, the aesthetics in 'Nickel Boys' don't work.
New York 2023 Review: FERRARI, A Testament of Craftsmanship
Adam Driver, Shailene Woodley and Penelope Cruz star in director Michael Mann's new film.
New York 2023 Review: Native American's Flight in EUREKA
Eureka is always a fascinating watch with full of ideas swimming around your head long after you leave the theater.
New York 2023 Review: PICTURES OF GHOSTS, Ephemeral Nature of Our Lives
Brazilian director Mendonça Filho serves as our expert guide to his beloved city of Recife, combining his own experience and his love of cinema.
