The 95th Academy Awards Race: Best Original Song
The Nominees are . . . • "Lift Me [...]
Foreign
A Chiara (2022)
A Chiara from filmmaker Jonas Carpignano is an Italian-language drama that bears an interesting idea. In the midst of teen angst, confusion, changes and discoveries, what would happen if added to that was the revelation that your father was a wanted criminal? What would be your emotional state? How would it hit you psychologically? You […]
The Innocents (2021)
Norwegian director Eskil Vogt got a double-honor at this year’s Academy Awards, first by getting a writing nomination along with his collaborator Joachim Trier for The World Person in the World and also saw his film nominated for Best International Feature. That film, about the adventures of a young woman that could easily be written […]
Happening (2021)
Audrey Diwan’s French drama Happening arrives in the United States at the very moment when the SCOTUS leak has led to raging protests over the possibility of overturning the historic Roe vs. Wade decision, giving individual states the right to control and even ban abortions, which, for the past 48 years, have remained legal. If […]
Vortex (2022)
It is always a great joy to present a four-star review to a film by a director whose work that I habitually avoid. That’s not an indication that Argentine director Gaspar Noé’s fails as an artist necessarily, but his content is a little difficult to stomach. His earlier films have tended to be nihilistic, sexually violent, […]
Anaïs in Love (2022)
If I were living in a space that included a girl like Anaïs I might be inclined to want strangle her, or at the very least thrust her out of my immediate surroundings so I could get on with the normal patterns of my life. She is the kind of person that I generally dislike. […]
The Tale of King Crab (2022)
Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis’ The Tale of King Crab opens with a moment that I found completely inviting. We’re in Tuscia in the company of a group of grizzled Italian fisherman, their faces weathered as much by the storms of life as by the elements of mother nature. They are […]
Paris, 13th District (2021)
I saw Jacques Audiard’s Paris, 13th District on a day when I saw five other movies. It was the only free day that I had in the week so I was cramming, therefore I didn’t have a lot of time to ruminate before whisking off to the next movie. Yet, out of the sextet of movies that […]
The Girl and the Spider (2022)
One is tempted to look at The Girl and the Spider and toss it into the bin of ‘art for art’s sake.’ I get that. It contains no moment of high drama, no conventuous leerings that paint the actor’s performances with Oscar clips. It is a drama, but not a riveting drama in any conventional […]
