Cannes 2013 Review: Coming to America is Gorgeous, But Slow Business in James Gray's THE IMMIGRANT

While heralded by a dedicated group of cinephiles in the U.S. (as well as most critics in France), director James Gray has always been more talked-about for his sure hand with actors and drama than for his visual style. Not... More »
  

Cannes 2013 Review: The Agony, Ecstasy of Masked Wrestling Gets Film Noir Treatment In OUR HEROES ARE DEAD TONIGHT

Back in 1960's France, masked wrestling was not a kitsch, novelty sport with a cult following -- it was serious business. According to the accepted narrative, it was not only a spectacle of brutality, but a powerful assertion of good... More »
  

Cannes 2013 Review: NEBRASKA is a Long Drive with a Charming Destination

Alexander Payne is on some kind of hot streak with all four of his major features receiving Oscar nominations and his last two (Sideways and The Descendants) both earning Best Picture noms and taking home statues for Best Adapted... More »
  

DVD Review: OFFENDER, Expressing Stylish Outrage At England's Young Offender System Of Justice

Sometimes I've gotten so angry that it felt as though steam would blow out of my ears and the top of my head would blow off, like a cartoon character. A similar depth of emotion roils through Ron Scalpello's Offender.... More »
  

Review: THE CHILD FROM MARACAIBO, Life, Death, Noir, And The Fantastic

The Child from Maracaibo is Miguel Curiel's second film. His previous movie, Una Noche Oriental was released more than 25 years ago (!), so I will treat this one as his real 'first film.' Watching it, I couldn't stop thinking... More »
  

DVD Review: FRACTALE, More Than Just A Pretty Anime-By-Numbers?

(Is it original, or an infinite spiral of repeated anime tropes?) Many recent Japanese animation series look good on the technical front, but seem to have trouble distinguishing themselves from the many series which came before them. It's always the... More »
By Ard Vijn   
  

Cannes 2013 Review: ONLY GOD FORGIVES and the Art of Violence

Nicolas Winding Refn may have burst onto the Hollywood scene with his slow burn but relatively straightforward actioner Drive, but before that film, Refn made a name for himself with considerably more abstract narratives such as Valhalla Rising. Refn... More »
  

Cannes 2013 Review: Claire Denis' THE BASTARDS Throws A Bleak, Sneaky Sucker Punch

Clair Denis' The Bastards begins as a simple, slow-burn revenge thriller, and then very quietly morphs into one of the bleakest, most twisted neo-noir films of the decade. As is often the case with Denis (35 Shots of Rum, White... More »
  

Cannes 2013 First Impression: ONLY GOD FORGIVES Is A Hyper-Violent Feast For The Senses

Few films are as anticipated around Twitch as Nicolas Winding Refn's follow-up to Drive and re-teaming with Ryan Gosling, Only God Forgives. The film has had its premier at Cannes and boy is it going to be divisive. More... More »
  

IFFR 2013 Review: ME TOO Is Balabanov's Final Wave To Us All

(Instant happiness or instant death, the end is the end...) Russian director - and enfant terrible - Alexey Balabanov wasn't exactly a stranger at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Nearly all of his films were screened at this festival upon... More »
By Ard Vijn   
  

Cannes 2013 Review: Sci-Fi Horror Flick LAST DAYS ON MARS Is As Lifeless As The Planet Itself

After the screening of Last Days on Mars in the director's fortnight competition, many were wondering why exactly the clunky, derivative Mars-zombie movie was programmed at a high-class festival like Cannes. Fair enough, but the bigger, even more nagging question... More »
  

Cannes 2013 Review: BEHIND THE CANDELABRA Plays A Familiar Tune

It's become somewhat common for HBO to premiere their bigger movies at notable festivals and Cannes makes perfect sense for Steven Soderbergh's so-called final film, Behind the Candelabra. It also makes sense that the Matt Damon and Michael Douglas... More »
  

Cannes 2013 Review: Takashi Miike's SHIELD OF STRAW Gets Middling Results From High Concept

There are so many ways in which Takashi Miike's Shield of Straw falls short of being the knockout that it could have been, it's hard to know where to start. The script alone could easily inspire a novella detailing all... More »
  

Review: KIDS ON THE SLOPE is a Jazzy Coming-of-age Tale from COWBOY BEBOP'S Director

Watching Watanabe Shinichiro's Kids on the Slope having already seen his previous works Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo feels very much like watching Hosoda Mamoru's Wolf Children after seeing The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars. It feels... More »
By Hugo Ozman   
  

Cannes 2013 Review: BLOOD TIES Knots Up 1970s New York

To call Guillaume Canet's Blood Ties a love letter to the 1970s is a bit of an understatement. The Clive Owen, Billy Crudup brothers-on-opposite-sides-of-the-law drama absolutely oozes with 1970s nostalgia from its impeccable costume and production design to its almost... More »
  

Cannes 2013 Review: BORGMAN Fiendishly Recounts The Time The Devil Went Up To Holland

The titular character of Alex van Warmerdam's Borgman does not have horns, nor does he command grotesque demons spawned from hellfire. Emaciated, clothed in rags with long hair and a beard, he actually looks a lot like Jesus at first.... More »
  

Review: DOCTOR WHO S7E14, THE NAME OF THE DOCTOR (Or, Things Get Dark And Interesting In An Excellent Finale)

Steven Moffat has made a great number of promises throughout the seventh series of Doctor Who. I was unsure whether he'd really be able to write a satisfying answer to the mystery of Clara but "The Name of the Doctor"... More »
  

Cannes 2013 First Impression: INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS Makes the Bad Times Fun

The Coen Brothers return with the 1960s-set Inside Llewyn Davis, a delightful tragicomedy about a musician just trying to get a break. Oscar Isaac plays the titular Llewyn and this is very much his show from beginning to end.... More »
  

Cannes 2013 Review: BLUE RUIN Or, Revenge Is A Pain In The Ass

Besides the fact that I doubt we'll see a more deft, thrilling genre film this year, I'm very pleased that Jeremy Saulnier's Blue Ruin addresses a number of issues that revenge films have been overlooking for decades. For example, after... More »
  

Cannes 2013 Review: Anurag Kashyap's UGLY Is a Riveting Thriller About Awful Things

Anurag Kashyap's follow-up to the widely admired Gangs of Wasseypur announces itself with a cacophony of discordant noise screeching over an attempted suicide. It's almost as if Kashyup decided to warn viewers up front, this one won't be easy. And,... More »
  
 
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