Film reviews and more
★★★★☆ After the recent centenary of Ingmar Bergman and Criterion Collection’s release of a mammoth thirty-nine film Blu-ray box set, the appeal of Bergman as a definitive auteur feels reborn in this moment. Affirming audiences with piercing observations on human nature, Jane Magnusson’s follows up Trespassing Bergman with Bergman: A Year in a Life. Focusing […]
★★★★☆ When historians look back at the rise of populism and anti-establishment feeling in the early years of the 21st century, they will almost certainly ascribe it to two central events. The first is the Iraq War, and the loss of faith it engendered in the West’s moral standing and its basic competence. […]
★★★★★ The subject of Alexandria Bombach’s On Her Shoulders is an extraordinary woman, Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad, and her tireless campaign for justice for the Yazidi people. Bombach demonstrates how Murad’s selfless devotion to the cause win hearts and minds and leads her to become the United Nation’s first Goodwill Ambassador for […]
★★★☆☆ In Karyn Kusama’s LA-based noir Destroyer, Nicole Kidman stars – and startles – as desiccated detective Erin Bell, revived by the possibility of vengeance against a past foe encountered while undercover seventeen years previously. Despite committed performances and an appealingly pulpy voyage through LA’s underbelly, the plot clings to the familiar beats […]