Having somehow unintentionally evaded 29-year-old Xavier Dolan’s previous acclaimed four films (he is already an 8 time Cannes award winner, and twice nominated for The Palm d’Or); Nothing can prepare the viewer for his latest It’s Only the End of the World. One of the nine finalists in consideration for the Academy Awards Foreign Film, […]
When a film gets the kind of buzz Raw gained out of film festivals; people reportedly fainting, throwing up, having to be carried out of the theater. It generates a level of anticipation (at least for American audiences) that can never be justified. Perhaps it’s because we live in a world so desaturated to violence
Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín is having quite a year. His first English language film Jackie is garnering lots of awards attention, while Neruda is Chilies’ official entry to the foreign language category at the Academy Awards. Both redefine what a biopic is, but the two couldn’t be more different presentations. If Jackie is Larraín’s version
Sometimes there are obstacles in making a film that could and should be a sign that something isn’t working. For Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Hollow Man) the fact he couldn’t communicate with the French actors, that every top actress from Cate Blanchett to Nicole Kidman refused the project might have been a sign. France’s official
France choose “the other” Isabelle Huppert film Elle, as their countries official foreign language submission to the Academy Awards. I can see why now, not that I think either film was the countries strongest choice (The Innocents by Anne Fontaine was much stronger). Between the two films, one a thriller, this one a procedural drama,
Best known for his 2003 international cult classic Old Boy, South Korean director Chan-wook Park has been making waves with his latest The Handmaiden. Crafted specifically for the stereotypical, single, live at home, surrounded by comic book memorabilia fan boy; The Handmaiden titillates more than it entertains. Told in a Quentin Tarantino chapter style, involving
South Korea’s official selection to the 89th Academy Awards, The Age of Shadows marks the second entry for actor Kang-ho Song, who starred in last year’s submission The Throne. The Age of Shadows is the least controversial of the two South Korean films that made moderate splashes in the US cinema market. Epic in scope,
I love the sheer humanness of this Japanese film with deliberate exposition and minimal music, which highlights the visual beauty on the screen and eloquent mindfulness of the dialog. Writer of the screenplay and director Hirokazu Koreeda has adapted Akimi Yoshida’s diary into a “moviescape” [I don’t know how else to put it] in which
Son of Saul gives us an inside view of what took place in Auschwitz-Birkenau, one of the German concentration camps during WWII.
A story of betrayal, blind trust and denouement, Phoenix will pull you in and keep you engaged throughout. It starts out mysteriously with two women in a car, one driving and the other in head bandages so only her eyes show.