Giovanni Marchini Camia

Not only is Mija’s mission genuinely involving, but Bong and his co-writer, the author Jon Ronson, also get great comic mileage out of satirizing the Mirando corporation, rendering it a hilarious amalgamation of all of capitalism’s evils, as well as the A.L.F. and their oxymoronic credo of non-violent terrorism.

Shedding little light on the circumstances of Elser’s failed attempt and even less on the broader history that surrounds it, 13 Minutes presents a redundant historical “what if” that leaves itself open to charges of relativization.

Even the most generous of viewers couldn’t come up with a legitimate reason for the vileness on show here, other than pure and simple sadism.

Though profoundly upsetting, The Club’s assault on institutionalized hypocrisy never risks feeling unjustified.

A major issue is that the characterizations don’t reach very deep and in the absence of a robust context or involving narrative, it’s actually the references to Haneke’s previous films that flesh out what is otherwise a rather perfunctory condemnation of the bourgeoisie equipped with the usual symbolic connotations.

Poitras takes very little advantage of her direct access to Assange to offer up any other information that isn’t already common knowledge.

Jarmusch’s film is a strictly conventional affair that resembles any number of TV documentaries.

Garrone’s prowess as a director is still undeniable, and as far as nasty, gripping brutality goes, Dogman certainly delivers. If you’re looking for pulpy violence, you won’t be disappointed. Just don’t expend too much thought over what it’s all supposed to mean.

As with the several other slight departures from realism, the artifice added to the story proves distracting. Without being successfully integrated, such choices fail to bestow the narrative with depth and pathos as intended, but only draw attention to the flimsiness of the its construction.

It’s all insane and intoxicating, and what’s perhaps most remarkable is that, ultimately, the ugliness and excess is legitimized by being in the service of an elaborate and ecstatically realized celebration of dancing as an art form.

By the time Suleiman’s character finishes his world trip and returns home, all he leaves us with is the reassurance that the Palestinian people are resilient and, eventually, will be free as well. That’s a terribly lazy note to end on. Some might even call it trivializing.

Overwriting has been the constant weakness in Farhadi’s filmmaking, but here the writer-director — who should really consider passing scriptwriting duties on to someone else for a change — truly outdoes himself.

The meticulous script by Lafosse and his three co-writers prompts the viewer to parse each of their sentences for underlying meaning and backstory, maintaining a necessary level of ambiguity that constantly shifts the perception of who’s in the right and who’s to blame.

Disappointingly, the film feels like someone trying very hard to imitate Li’l Quinquin, pulling off but a pallid counterfeit.

Apart from a middle stretch during which the narrative loses momentum and Staying Vertical feels temporarily aimless – something that Guiraudie soon rectifies by amping up the weirdness – the film is as engaging and consistently uproarious as it is perplexing.

Desplechin has frequently acknowledged his debt to psychoanalysis in general and Lacan specifically, but never had he dared plunge as deeply into the mysteries of the psyche as he does here. [Cannes Version]

Even the cinematography by the Dardennes’ long-time collaborator Alain Marcoen, usually so instrumental in ensnaring the viewer within their films’ ethical quandaries, is surprisingly flat this time around.

Café Society is a quintessential later-period Woody Allen film. That is to say, it’s utterly mediocre.

Ends up probing largely universal quandaries to lackluster results.

The plot’s construction might be derivative, but its serpentine execution is flawless, providing enough crazy turns and zany characters to sustain an escalating momentum for Silver Lake‘s nearly two-and-a-half-hour runtime.

An extraordinarily rich, initially exasperating, yet eventually marvelous postmodern epic.

The lack of characterization is Cups‘ biggest flaw.... The constant Malick-ian voice-overs – fragmented, hushed, magniloquent – largely replacing dialogue don’t offer much by way of compensation.

Lacking the earlier stylistic exuberance, Dog Eat Dog loses all momentum, taking forever to come to a conclusion both foregone and deeply dissatisfying.

Much like the film’s clinical cinematography, which is dominated by consistently striking yet lifeless tableaux, Côté’s theorem is closed in on itself, failing to produce interesting results.

The director has set out to make the most repellently misogynistic film imaginable, yet he’s disguised it as a postmodern feminist satire. By shattering every possible taboo, the film is supposed to be an attack against the very thing it represents. Really, though, any semblance of commentary is simply a posture for Winding Refn to cover his ass.

While he does, to an extent, stifle some of his more adolescent instincts in comparison to earlier films (e.g. Laurence Anyways and Mommy), Dolan generally appears to have mistaken maturity for joylessness.

Polanski sleepwalks his way through the film, manifesting precious little of the skill and invention that fueled the slow-burn suspense and sinister atmospheres of superficially similar works such as Rosemary’s Baby and Repulsion.