Even if he wasn’t dying from colon cancer, André Ricciardi would make a fascinating subject for a documentary. Tony Benna’s André Is an Idiot shows this clearly by giving us a look not just at his disease, but at the totality of his life, making this film a joyful celebration …
In 2020, due to the pandemic and the lack of releases in theaters, a few films got unusual spotlight. One of them was a black-and-white documentary about a pig. Viktor Kossakovsky’s Gunda is one of the films from that year that people remember and discuss. NEON released it in the …
When discussing modern experimental electronic music, Daniel Lopatin, also known as Oneohtrix Point Never or OPN, is a prominent name in the conversation. Despite releasing acclaimed solo records, OPN also produced artists like FKA Twigs, Charli XCX, The Weeknd, and Soccer Mommy, musicians who bring electronic elements to mainstream pop. …
For the last forty years, the Sundance Film Festival has been a crucial festival to highlight American independent cinema. Each year, when the event unveils its lineup, cinephiles, audiences, and sales agents dive into the programming to guess which of the selections will join films like Little Miss Sunshine, Memento, …
The immediate reaction to this excellent movie – which on its surface is about an arrogant young American table-tennis player’s attempts to attend two world championships, one in London and the other in Tokyo, in the early 1950s – seems to be that no one wants to watch a movie …
Eternity feels like the type of movie made 60 or 70 years ago. Charming and romantic, this comedy-drama relies on the on-screen chemistry of its leading stars and whip-smart writing. Set in a version of the afterlife, Eternity explores who from your life you will be destined to spend your …
Over the last few years, my relationship with Ari Aster’s filmography could best be described as a rollercoaster ride. Hereditary is one of the defining works of modern horror and among my favorite films of the century. In 2019, Midsommar captivated me with its fusion of visual beauty and psychological …
Alex Garland, known for his thought-provoking storytelling in films like Ex Machina and Civil War, joins forces with war veteran Ray Mendoza to create one of his most ambitious projects to date. Co-written by the two filmmakers, Warfare aims to depict a military surveillance mission with the utmost realism – …
Society’s infatuation with social media has grown and evolved over the years. What started with sites connecting long-distance/old friends (looking at you, Facebook) has morphed into something else. The culture constantly compares itself, making it hard for the younger generation to grow without feeling bad about themselves. Such a methodology …
Just as there’s a thin line between love and hate, there’s a thin line between romance and horror. What from one perspective shows love conquering all can also be seen as a person (usually a woman) having to deny their career, their sexuality and their independence in order to be …
With the stage set in A24’s X, Ti West looks to continue the story of Maxine and her fame-crazed counterpart by looking back to yesteryear with the second film in the horror trilogy, Pearl: An X-traordinary Origin Story. As a prequel to the first film, Pearl takes audiences back to …
Halina Reijn, the director behind 2022’s wildly entertaining Bodies Bodies Bodies, returns with Babygirl, an erotic drama starring Nicole Kidman. Kidman, now 57, has never shied away from taking on racy material, but her role as Romy, an aging CEO for a growing artificial intelligence company, is her most daring …
What do you believe in? It seems like a simple enough question to answer; however, when you begin to break it down, there are many ways to interpret it. What beliefs are we talking about? Religion, perhaps? Are we talking about which God we pray to and what religious standards …
At this point in my life, I’ve seen so many horror films and series that nothing surprises me. There are so many horror films on the scene nowadays, and the twists they attempt to present can be boiled down to the basics of storytelling. They become predictable, which isn’t necessarily …
Fairy tales have always dealt with heavy topics. Children still need to know about complex issues, and sometimes, couching those issues in a fantastical world can make them easier to understand. That remains true for adults. High fantasy stories can cause us to engage with topics that we might otherwise …
In 2022, audiences were introduced to the world of the X trilogy with X and its prequel Pearl, both of which were produced and filmed at a record time and managed to come out in the same year. Only two years later, the working relationship between A24, director Ti West, …
With On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, director and writer Rungano Nyoni returns to Cannes with an exciting sophomore feature after her successful feature film debut with I Am Not a Witch. Nyoni’s latest film competed in the Un Certain Regard section of the festival, where the Zambia-born director won the …
Google a definition of the word reality, and you’ll get #1 – “the world or state of things as they actually exist” and #2 – “the state or quality of having existence or substance.” But what makes something real? What actually exists? What percentage of people have to agree something is reality for it to be so? …
There are times when we get to watch a film that makes us realize what our future might look like and paints a very dark picture in front of us. In Alex Garland’s Civil War, viewers find themselves in the middle of a gruesome fight between the people and the state. Throughout …
Alex Garland has a penchant for mutually assured destruction. His writing and, in recent years, his directing revolve around this theme; the Danny Boyle sci-fi masterpiece and Garland written Sunshine (2006) consists of characters debating the moral repercussions of saving another spaceship at risk of losing humanity; Garland’s Annihilation (2018) climaxes with a symbiotic reflection of …