Kelly Reichardt is incredibly gifted at gleaning gold from atypical cinematic perspectives. This is most apparent in Meek's Cutoff and Certain Women (though also true of Wendy and Lucy) and continues, beautifully, in First Cow. In this film, we follow Cookie (John Magaro), a skilled cook who begins the film in a group of Trappers. … Continue reading First Cow (Review)
Category: Films
City Hall (Review)
Revered documentarian Frederick Wiseman's four and a half hour documentary about Boston's city government ends up, frustratingly, as too reflective of its subject. This is a well meaning, extremely competently put together thing that is often fascinating but, ultimately, is so unwieldy and talky that it never really gets anything done. This is an exhaustive, … Continue reading City Hall (Review)
Have You Seen… An Elephant Sitting Still (2018)?
Welcome to ‘Have You Seen….’ a regular column exploring an interesting film that is worthy of greater attention – for good or for ill. The focus is on the underseen, the undersung or the underrated – or just those films you just need to write about. The focus is analysis more than evaluation so, expect … Continue reading Have You Seen… An Elephant Sitting Still (2018)?
Have You Seen… The Ascent (1977)?
Welcome to ‘Have You Seen….’ a regular column exploring an interesting film that is worthy of greater attention – for good or for ill. The focus is on the underseen, the undersung or the underrated – or just those films you just need to write about. The focus is analysis more than evaluation so, expect … Continue reading Have You Seen… The Ascent (1977)?
Minari (Review)
At its heart, Minari is a film about assimilation. Why it is such a wonderful film is because it is about in this is so many ways. The most overt layer of this is about the cultural divides the film depicts, focusing on a family that have emigrated to America from Korea who are in … Continue reading Minari (Review)
The Painted Bird
Part way through this film, we have the scene from which it gets it title. It is a visual metaphor that overhangs the whole film and gives us the best window into the film's message. A man grabs a bird in his hand and he paints it, marking it as different. He lets the bird … Continue reading The Painted Bird
The White Tiger (Review)
You can sense the award winning novel at the heart of this adaptation. There are moments of fascinating subtext and well judged relationships - novelistic moments. Unfortunately, this film is overwhelmed by surface, and by aesthetic, turning an interesting exploration of the pernicious impacts of the Indian caste-system (and ingrained inequality) into something flashy but … Continue reading The White Tiger (Review)
Stump the Guesser (Review)
This 2020 short from Maddin, Johnson and Johnson feels like it comes from a parallel reality. This is true of both the craft and the narrative, both consistently surreal and beguiling. The result of this is an uproariously fun twenty minutes, in the hands of people with astonishing visual animations, that takes you on an … Continue reading Stump the Guesser (Review)
Have You Seen… Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)?
Welcome to ‘Have You Seen….’ a regular column exploring an interesting film that is worthy of greater attention – for good or for ill. The focus is on the underseen, the undersung or the underrated – or just those films you just need to write about. The focus is analysis more than evaluation so, expect … Continue reading Have You Seen… Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)?
Malcolm and Marie (Review)
It feels like too much has been written about Malcolm and Marie already, mostly because of how utterly inessential and forgettable the film is. When taken as proof that you can make a film during Covid-19 - that is thankfully not about Covid - it is, well, just that. It is also proof on the … Continue reading Malcolm and Marie (Review)
Assorted Opinions 