Rory O'Connor

Dumont’s space oddity might not always land on the right side of its jokes and provocations, but every now and then it takes the breath away.

The vast majority of the film functions as a hypnotic if frankly monotonous dialectic (ruminations on Christ, honor, “we were just following orders,” war, love etc. that become more heated as time goes on) that is assured to alienate most anyone without a minor in philosophy or the vocabulary of academic text.

Contrary to the setup’s illusions, Brühl distances and thus absolves himself by making Daniel a nasty caricature–arrogant, speaking in brooding actorly tones, eager to pose for selfies and flirt with fans. Had he played it straight, Next Door might just have been vital.

A fevered, hypnotizing, meticulously detailed period piece with a protagonist so monomaniacal the film could almost be considered high camp.

Costner hasn’t forgotten where to point a camera, and outside all the table-setting, Horizon has moments designed to astonish.

The subcultures in Manodrome are ostensibly a work of fiction but, exaggerated as they may be, are no less plausible or rife with intrigue.

Yes, Dario Argento’s first film in ten years is pretty fun, for a while—and no, not near his best.

It is, quite frankly, a bit dull as it plays out in a near constant melodramatic key.

The meat of Suburbicon is certainly Grade-A, but no expense has been spared on the trimmings either. Even the briefest supporting players are fully formed and often quite memorable.

It is a weepy Sunday matinee melodrama of the most run-of-the-mill variety, full of pretty people in pretty clothes feeling Big Emotions.

Indeed, the strangest thing about Mainstream (and it is a strange, strange film) is just how out of touch it feels. Granted, if it were easy to make a viral video we would all be doing it; yet what Coppola and her team have come up with is just so lame and off the mark and nauseatingly self-satisfied.

In spite of it all, the cast members do themselves justice for the most and I couldn’t help but be charmed by Riseborough’s wide-eyed decency as she hosts her frequent “forgiveness” meetings–not to mention be seduced by Nighy’s signature suave detachment.

While often a bit of a slog, the film is not without a sense of humor, and the director still knows how to execute a sharp surrealist flourish from time to time.

The nonsense really is rampant throughout, but the writing is on the wall (quite literally) from the opening introductory paragraph.

This film lives off the warmth between its actors but boasts a throwback charm that appears in keeping with recent resurgences of other seemingly past-it directors.

Narratively it’s nothing if not succinct, and whatever In Water lacks for plot it more than makes up for in mood and ideas, as well as a kind of raw artistic honesty.

The director of Astrakan is David Depesseville (frankly just a touch too close to Depressville for comfort). Astrakhan is his first film and suggests something of a stylistic calling card, not least at film’s close: a late flurry of exposition and offcuts that are less in service of plot or character or even mood and more an artist showing what else they can do. It’s not entirely a turn-off.

Cinema rarely looks towards solitary old age with such a sense of pleasurable relief. That Blackbird does so feels revelatory; thus I couldn’t help feeling a touch shortchanged to see the film lose its nerve at the very last, giving in to easier laughs and less-satisfying sentiment––even if Naveriani ends things less on a full stop than a question mark.

Like much of the director’s work, it’s the kind of thing you could have seen late night on television when you were much too young. It would have also left a mark.

It’s a wonderfully inquisitive film, as searching as it is sincere.

Bestiari, Erbari, Lapidari offers an incredible study of our place on this planet, our fascination with it, and our duty to record and remember.

It is often a beautiful film, not least when Carneiro pulls back and allows the landscape to take over. It’s in those moments that Savanna really makes its point, watching from above as locals navigate their way through the same narrow pathways their families have walked for generations––the gradualness of that process a stark antithesis to the bluntness of what may come.