Luke Hicks

John Lennon: The Last Interview is a minor work in the canon of both Soderbergh and John/Yoko, but it’s a niche wellspring of hyper-detailed information for Beatles purists.

Hamaguchi’s screenplay for his first French film (co-written with Léa Le Dimna) overflows with insight and discernment at such great depth that it’s more like the Tao Te Ching than a script, more like a film by the Dalai Lama than an internationally beloved auteur.

Nemes’ directorial tendencies are on point, but they aren’t as enigmatic or unforgettable as they’ve been in the past.

Paper Tiger is a welcome addition to the oeuvre and one that has potential to mature into something even greater. The man simply knows how to tell a New York story.

Fjord is a triumphant film that tugs at the spiritual and soulful in all of us, regardless of nation, creed, faith, or the rejection of all three.

While it might offer more than a Marvel movie in cinematic craft, it suggests little more in story, character, and depth. What begins as a riveting romp through monster mystery ultimately falls flat as a fun, middling creature feature that’s a whole hour too long.

Farhadi tries to be funny and Huppert occasionally makes it work (e.g. using a toaster to light her cigarette), but the comedic element is disparate and half-baked. Yet to Farhadi’s credit, his and Massoumeh Lahidji’s dialogue, which serves as the engine of moral ambiguity that powers the story, has the strength to keep one’s attention for the lengthy runtime if they’re able to invest.

It’s the kind of film you ache through. But the aching doesn’t come from devastating romance or impossible love, as it did in Cold War, but the inherent difficulty in ever fully grasping one’s identity or coming to terms with the inevitable conflict of family.

Lavish with cultural references and fresh imagination, Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma is a revelry of comedy, murder, intellectualism, sexual awakening, queerness, and more.

Gyllenhaal never tones down the brutality, ripping us through bloody tongues, heads, and bodies—in cinematographer Lawrence Sher’s fit of gorgeously captured violence—until the frenzied finish

Ford’s witty crime caper employs a nonstop pace that grooves slyly along to Emile Mosseri’s quick, bass-heavy, snare-driven score, which hangs ever-present in the backing soundscape. It has, for better and worse, the feeling of a montage that never ends.

This silly, simplistic sci-fi journey means to be thought-provoking, but the irony of its banality is more recoiling than provocative.

Diaz makes a mockery of Magellan in his depiction of the revered globetrotter, his take on the Age Of Discovery damning to say the least.

The screenplay is overflowing with memorable meditations, blunt-but-heartfelt exchanges, and piercing affection for its people, all rooted in the natural world around them.

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere is a slog, confused about the artist at its heart and stuck on unconvincing ideas about his art.

Whether it’s a new chapter for Aronofsky or a tangential dip into different territory, Caught Stealing proves the auteur hasn’t lost his touch.

Splitsville is overflowing with one-liners and gut-busters that make it ripe for subsequent viewings.

The characters are so fleshed-out, the diction so lived-in, the backstories and present stories so engaging. Their conversations seem less like scripted scenes than real moments lucky to have been captured. In creating a relatively small and recognizable film that can feel revelatory, Trier shows sleight of hand that could only belong to a young veteran at the height of his career.

I don’t know if The History of Sound is worth revisiting for its devastating romance, the likes of which deepen this story’s emotion but make it a much heavier haul, but I’m counting down the days until I can revisit its songs, sonically and visually; the hearing speaks for itself.

The duo is responsible for one of cinema’s greatest cinematic achievements, Malcolm X, while the other three would have a fighting chance at most directors’ best. If Highest 2 Lowest falls on the lower end of their partnership, the sparks of brilliance they’ve found in the past will flare up multiple times.

One film too late for a sophomore slump, Alpha feeds on its own potential, turning a possibly brilliant collection of ideas into one so muddy it’s hard to say exactly what any of them connote. But the feeling of having to trudge through is there all the same, and over two hours is a long trudge.

It’s textbook Petzold, which I mean as a major compliment. Don’t expect all of the mysteries to be uncovered. There is no big explainer moment or narratively satisfying closure, the likes of which Petzold rejects, but the enigmas that do reveal themselves yield rare treasures.

It’s often pleasant, pretty, impressive, and well-scored (and we’ll note the spectacle of design shortly), but that isn’t enough for someone of his caliber. Where is the emotion? The feeling? The Owen Wilson perspective of his storytelling soul?

At worst it’s preachy and, I fear, will feel “old” to younger audiences. At best, Nouvelle Vague is the kind of movie that emboldens people to make films themselves, and even more so, to adopt filmmaking as a way of life.

The movie looks amazing, it’s often intriguing, the style is evocative, and it should be distinct from Kaufman’s work. But in the ways that it’s similar, there’s less to be discovered––the ghost of revelation where it feels revelation could be.

It’s a fine return for Whannell after being off the scene these last few years.

Goswami gives a subtly powerful performance grounded in perpetual shock, patience to act, and measured wisdom. And the enigmatic screenplay devises a grey area so hazy you’ll be going over it in your head for weeks, if not months, asking yourself what you would’ve done in Santosh’s impossible situation.

It relegates its thematic strengths to the corner of ironically thoughtless family fun entertainment that seeks to please and assuage where other projects might investigate the theme and leave you with a sense of concern over the real-world parallels without sacrificing entertainment