In one way, the jazz biopic Everybody Digs Bill Evans is a resounding success as it introduces those of us who are not jazz fanatics to the life of the artist behind some huge hits and of the greatest live jazz recordings ever made. In another way, the jazz biopic …
Of course you’ve seen Frozen, the animated juggernaut which drew heavily both on Scandinavian culture and that of the Sámi, the people indigenous to the Arctic circle, for its story of female empowerment and the importance of bonds between siblings. But that was a story for children, made by people …
Music documentaries are very good at providing a sociological picture of the time and place where the band got together. If a band gets famous enough to participate in its own obituary, their lives of success on the road tend to blur into This is Spinal Tap. If there were …
Three boys living in a rural, riverside community in the Philippines are forced to reckon with enduring grief and guilt following a gruesome crime involving their fathers. Shot entirely on iPhone across 35 days without a formal script and with a nonprofessional cast doubling as film crew, I grew an …
Enjoy Your Stay is a strikingly ironic and sinister title for a movie centered on the invisible labor that sustains the pristine and postcard-esque surface of a luxury ski resort in Switzerland. Played with an unassuming yet magnetic force by Mercedes Cabral, Luz is part of a mostly Filipino cleaning …
2004’s Man on Fire, starring Denzel Washington (based on a book of the same name from 1980), existed as a seminal film of its time. Twenty-four years after its release, the film has cemented its place in the action movie pantheon. In my younger film-watching years, it existed as a …
Joe doesn’t know what’s wrong with his parents. Why would they move him to this creepy movie straight out of a horror movie? There are tombstones in the basement, strange noises everywhere, and he knows the doll he found in his room has been the star of a few horror …
Sports dramas are a sub-genre that allows filmmakers to take multiple different approaches. They can narrate the Cinderella story of an underdog team, the individual evolution of its players, or the downside of being an athlete. In her debut feature, Charlotte Glynn takes the latter approach. The Gymnast is a …
The subject matter of We Believe You is unusually grim, but the grimness is offset by the institutional setting: a custody hearing in a Belgian family court, all pale office furniture and glass walls. Inside this bland setting a family and its lawyers have the most serious conversations of their …
Content warning: sexual assault, child-centric trauma Writer-director Beth de Araújo has been open that Josephine is based on a true incident from her childhood. The trouble is that knowing this fact hampers the ability to speak critically about the film. Anything negative might feel like a personal attack against the …
Throughout the history of documentary filmmaking, the observational type captures a story through the absence of direct interference by the director. It is a format that allows the audience to understand the subject more profoundly. An observational film is the one that rejects the talking head interview scheme to create …
Before discussing Hacks season five, I would like to give some context into my relationship with the show. Hacks premiered in 2021 as one of the first highly acclaimed MAX (Known as HBO Max at the time) series. Having started watching the show at the time, it became one of …
At Cannes, L’ACID presents a range of indie films, including the 2D animation Blaise by Jean-Paul Guigue and Dimitri Planchon. The film is the sophomore effort by Guigue, following his 2024 The Darwinners (Silex and the City, le film), which also premiered at the same festival previously. The director’s latest work, …
While I’m a huge self-appointed Marvel nerd, I have to be honest…The Punisher has never been one of my favorite characters. When I was still pretty young, my eldest sister met a guy who would eventually become my brother-in-law, who was obsessed with The Punisher. So much so that he …
Dawn of War’s grand strategy RTS game was a triumph when it launched back in 2004 and recently remastered to boot, it stands tall as one of the classics of the RTS genre. Empire at War, other remakes of its time stand the test of time and with the recent …
One of the beauties of non-fiction filmmaking is presenting the audience with a reality that they might never have known before. Yet, there is a fascinating aspect to comprehending how human beings behave and live differently in each corner of the world. In this sense, the Polish documentary The Queen …
A Michael Jackson movie was always going to be riddled with curiosity. With a life and story as extensive as the late singer’s, it certainly was not going to appease everyone. Director Antoine Fuqua was saddled with a difficult task in Michael. How far can he go into the man’s …
The unhappy true story on which Forsaken is based is one of the most traumatising situations in modern French history. It brought together several of the most hot-button issues of the modern era – freedom of speech and how the state handles issues of religion in a legally secular society …
Not a lot of franchises manage to retain the ‘freshness’ after six entries. The few that do achieve this impressive feat through reinvention: a new director, a rebranding through self-awareness, or a pivot anchored on a ‘back to basics’ frame. Torrente for President (Torrente, presidente), the sixth entry in a …
The Cannes Film Festival normally chooses a lighthearted French movie as its opener, mainly to celebrate the kind of movie that doesn’t always get its due. Tragedy can be very easy to make, but comedy – especially romantic comedy – is tough. You need great control over mood, you need …