Difficult to describe, a pleasure to watch. Sometimes, a movie requires patience. Watching Georgian director Anna Urushadze’s Scary Mother, I kept trying to pinpoint the film’s genre. I would think it was a drama about a stifling marriage, until it…
Tells the stories that need to be told Storytelling plays a crucial role in Transit, a film about displacement during wartime, directed by Christian Petzold and adapted from Anna Segher’s novel. There’s a scene in which Georg (Franz Rogowski), a…
The most intense bonds are often the most unstable The best movies tell only the stories they need to tell, with only the resources they need. Directed by Debra Granik, Leave No Trace is perfectly minimal. Based on Peter Rock’s…
You won’t see this punchline coming Sometimes, you’ll be so enthralled by a movie while watching it, you won’t notice how odd it was until the lights come up, the screen dims and you make your way out of the…
Film Review: ‘Mary Shelley’ Recalls with earnestness and urgency the fascinating life of a towering figure Writer of the most influential science fiction novel of all time, Mary Wollstencraft Godwin Shelley lived a torrid life. Straddling poverty, she shacked up…
Celebrates the universal spirit of rebellion Berlin, 1956, and the wall is not yet built. People from the Soviet-controlled East can take a train to the Democratic West, but they need identification papers and a good, temporary reason for doing…
A promising director’s most accomplished work yet Playing at this year’s American Essentials Film Festival, Lynn Shelton latest, Outside In, is easily her most accomplished work yet. She applies the improvised, almost dogme-like Mumblecore approach, headed by this film’s producers…
Sometimes the most modest films deserve the biggest screens As production companies continue to balk at theatrically releasing their movies, streaming behemoth Netflix snaps up the most interesting and daring contemporary movies. On the one hand, smaller, more challenging movies…
The zany, genre-hopping Abracadabra kicks off the 21st Spanish Film Festival The appropriately titled Abracadabra was shown at the media preview for the 21st Spanish Film Festival, showcasing a little of the movie magic in Spanish filmmaking. Beginning 19 April and running…
As a loving and proud Northcote resident — a bit too proud, my friends might say — I’d like to think of it as the hood that has it all (as it does, of course, and always will). Going North,…