The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2
The sustained effort to run out the clock eventually becomes unignorable--there's only so much you can do with half a story.
Late Spring
The film's plainness affords it an effortless grace, a touch perfectly attuned to the brave new world of a Japan suddenly flung onto a stage of international modernity.
Pan
Pan is a reminder that our adoption of Peter Pan into pop culture as a hero precisely for his “escaping adulthood” is a purposefully watered-down reading of the character.
The Apu Trilogy
Through his observation of small moments, tender and heartbreaking both, Satyajit Ray has made the story of one young man feel like that of humanity entire.
NYFF 2015: The Assassin
Hou's clarity of vision ensures that the film's various birch forests and palace interiors and ancient relics are beautiful—so beautiful, indeed, that they almost become distorted and unreal.
Crimson Peak
The film at its best can evoke both nostalgic beauty and goth-y horror at the same time. If something’s crumbling, after all, what happened to the people who were supposed to take care of it?
Meru
The transition from the details of the climb to the abstract themes being discussed is seamless, which enhances the significance of both threads of the film.
What Lies Beneath: The Films of Robert Zemeckis
Zemeckis' lesser known films provide a context for the director’s consistent style—as well as that style's consistent variability.
Sicario
The film's border setting acts as a suitable metaphor: the War on Drugs transgresses boundaries not only physical but also moral, and the audience feels the weight of these transgressions with every passing minute.
Animated Streaming Pick: Chico & Rita
For the first in a series of Animated Streaming Picks, Kyle Johnson reviews Francisco Trueba's visually and sonically resplendent jazz romance.
NYFF 2015: Everything is Copy
Because the tone and content of her writing were so personal, Ephron’s success paradoxically depended on her carefully curated public image. While everything is copy, it’s only copy when she wants it to be, and her power lies in that distinction between open and secret.
NYFF 2015: In the Shadow of Women
With each narrative reveal, one gets the creeping sense that Pierre, too, by virtue of his very infidelity, his childish behavior, his destructive impulses, lives in the shadow of the woman he’s betraying.
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