I recently had the good fortune to screen Macedonian writer-director Leon Ristov’s short film Nikola, Nikola, which had its World Premiere in June at the…
One of the earliest scenes in supernatural horror movie Never After Dark is of everyday familial intimacy — as a young woman drives along a…
Leonardo Pirondi’s debut feature Tropicais Fractais isn’t your conventional sci-fi epic. There is a spaceship, a futuristic bio-dome-like built environment, AI-powered supercomputers, and the impending…
Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto forged his legendary cult status with ultraviolent, psychosexual Japanese films like Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Tokyo Fist, and A Snake in…
“Intergenerational trauma” is a phrase that comes up often as a therapeutic buzzword, but less often is it talked about in systemic terms. When Colette…
A stunning bird’s-eye view of the Pacific Northwest’s sprawling vistas appears several times over in The Weight, Padraic McKinley’s tense, atmospheric Depression-era thriller; it’s the…
A secret screening is always exciting. As part of Muscle Distribution’s recent Musclefest, a weekend of queer and transgressive film screenings at The Roxy Cinema…
All you need before attending Muscle Distribution’s Musclefest, a four-night screening series at the Roxy Cinema in mid-September, is a general belief that we don’t…
Powwow People, the new documentary from Ho-Chunk / Pechanga director Sky Hopinka is somewhat more straightforward than the experimental filmmaking that first gained Hopinka notoriety.…
Hope, South Korean director Na Hong-jin’s first foray into big-budget science fiction, is still very much a Na film. The hapless main characters, the thrilling,…
Looking back to the heyday of the New Queer Cinema movement that ruled the ’90s (the term itself was coined by film critic and scholar…
As usual, a specter is haunting the art world, and the newest one wears a lot of different faces. AI-generated imagery is the place where…
Since I first reviewed Chronovisor in my Rotterdam coverage this past February, Kevin Walker and Jack Auen’s feature debut has become a miniature sensation. Not…
Before beginning production on Rope (1948), Alfred Hitchcock invited screenwriter Arthur Laurents to dinner with his wife Alma. The film’s star, Farley Granger, with whom…
There’s a category of media that takes juvenile gleefulness in tarnishing comforting and wholesome nostalgic imagery with violence, sex, and existential darkness. Early internet games…
After Latvia became the first Baltic country to win an Academy Award with Flow in 2025, Conan O’Brien joked, “Ball’s in your court, Estonia!” The…
The verdant hills of a resort’s private golf course serve as the backdrop for Rafael Manuel’s debut feature, Filipiñana; a strikingly picturesque setting that is…
It’s been 30 years since we lost Jon Jost. One shouldn’t worry: the American director is still alive and well, living, working, painting, traveling, and…
You’d never know, just by looking at a Jesse V. Johnson picture, that he was working with much smaller budgets than the action you see…
Punk iconoclast Alex Cox isn’t going away quietly; in fact, he might not be going away at all — but let’s not get in the…
i. Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy It was Thymoetes, erstwhile soothsayer, who first took to that almighty horse. Hooves aloft, eyes heavenward,…