“This week’s IFFBoston Fall Focus is a welcome return to the organization’s original mission: gathering the community together to share the experience of seeing movies with one another in the area’s historic independent venues. And as always, they’ve put together an enticing lineup of films featuring everything from porn stars to Princess Diana.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 10/19/2021
“A tribute not to the legendary filmmaker’s techniques but to his restless, questioning spirit, unafraid to dive into the messy overlap between art and life. Yet this is a much kinder, gentler film than any by Bergman, taking a moment to champion the virtues of Sweden’s other chief export ABBA, before ultimately finding a little serenity in the silence.” – North Shore Movies, 10/15/2021
“There’s an agreeably rambling, ragtag energy that when it’s cooking has the sidewinding appeal of an old country tune, packed with colorful characters and a lot of stuff happening that stubbornly refuses to rise to the level of story. It only gets into trouble when Corsbie runs out of verses to Snider’s song and attempts to impose a plot on the proceedings.” – North Shore Movies, 10/14/2021
My third dispatch from the 59th New York Film Festival includes capsule reviews of Jane Campion’s The Power Of The Dog, Gaspar Noé’s Vortex and Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers.
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My second dispatch from the 59th New York Film Festival includes capsule reviews of Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Wheel Of Fortune And Fantasy, Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch and Sean Baker’s Red Rocket.
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My first dispatch from the 59th New York Film Festival includes capsule reviews of Paul Verhoeven’s Benedetta, Julia Ducournau’s Titane and Ed Lachman’s Songs For Drella.
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“A monument to ruin, it’s one of those great, misshapen movies full of bizarre tonal shifts and strange directorial choices that don’t seem to make much sense in the moment but linger in your mind for months afterward. Pauline Kael called it ‘an unqualified disaster of the type that only talented people have.’ I think it might be something of a masterpiece.” – Crooked Marquee, 10/08/2021
“The best Bond since Craig’s initial outing in Casino Royale, and the first since the character’s 2006 re-introduction to remember that these films are supposed to be funny. Thanks presumably to a well-publicized dialogue polish by Fleabag writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge, No Time To Die is full of punchy, prickly banter and has a refreshing silly streak.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 10/07/2021
“I’m not sure Lamb is ultimately about much beyond atmosphere and arresting visuals, but this hypnotic little whatzit from Reykjavik gets a lot of mileage out of a central visual gimmick so sublime it carries the film over a lot of dead air. Is the image of a baby sheep dressed in people clothes enough to sustain an entire movie? The answer might surprise ewe.” – North Shore Movies, 10/07/2021
“An anti-nostalgia nostalgia trip, it’s a knotty character study about insular tribes, empty gestures and performative macho rituals full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. No storyteller delights in the subversive anticlimax quite like David Chase, and I worry that this excellent film will be judged against audience expectations it has no interest in fulfilling.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 09/30/2021
