Foreign
Blu-Ray Review – The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
One of the great expressions of youthful love and the unforeseen circumstances of life, Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) is one of the great musical fantasies of the 1960s. Filled with life, color, and a beautiful score composed by Michel Legrand, the film…
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Film Review – Raw (Second Take)
Raw (2016) starts off hinting towards something diabolical. A horror film about cannibalism is always a good starting point for an icky story. And while we do get plenty of horror involving the consumption of human flesh, the final product may not be what we…
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Film Review – Raw
Julia Ducournau’s French/Belgian horror film Raw reinterprets the emotional and physical strains of post-adolescents into a grisly genre masterwork. Within her gory exploration of common coming-of-age tropes, such as peer group hierarchies, the awkward discovery of sexuality and the love/hate whirlwind of sibling rivalry, Ducournau…
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Film Noir Files – Victoria
Pulling An All Nighter The strangest things happen at night. For the title character of Victoria (2015), what starts out innocently enough turns deadly serious when she is placed in an increasingly dangerous situation. That’s the basic essence of noir, when you think about it:…
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Film Review – Toni Erdmann
What to make of Winfried, the elderly scamp whose idea of fun is playfully tricking a Fed Ex man into thinking he’s carrying a bomb to his doorstep? A man whose very idea of fun, in fact, is slipping a pair of goofy fake teeth…
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Blu-Ray Review – Black Girl
Ousmane Sembène is considered by many to be the father of African cinema. A political activist, author, and filmmaker, the Senegalese Sembène made it his life’s mission to tell distinct African stories without white European influence (Senegal was once a French occupied territory). In collaboration…
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Film Review – Elle
Paul Verhoeven’s new film Elle, starts with a rape. It is both graphic and horrifying, so if you are unable to watch that sort of thing, this might not be the movie for you. There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the role of…
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Film Review – Things to Come
Isabelle Huppert brilliantly holds together Things to Come a confounding yet still fascinating film. Director Mia Hansen-Løve has a style that is hard to pin down. She likes to create as much real life as she can in her films that sometimes leads to me…
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