‘Left-Handed Girl’ (左撇子女孩) Review: Shih-Ching Tsou’s Solo Debut is a Vibrant Mother-Daughter Miracle [A-] TIFF
Minutes into Shih-Ching Tsou’s solo debut Left-Handed Girl, I knew I was in good hands. Watching our three female leads sitting at a small cramped... Read More
Film Reviews
‘The Choral’ Review: Ralph Fiennes is Pitch-Perfect in Old-Fashioned British Wartime Drama [B] TIFF
Yorkshire, England, 1916. Young Lofty (Oliver Briscombe) has the unenviable task of delivering the bad news to the townsfolk that their loved ones have died... Read More
‘Back Home’ Review: In Barely an Hour Tsai Ming-liang Asks ‘What is a Home?’ [B] Venice
Tsai Ming-liang has become a progressively more esoteric filmmaker since he began his career three and a half decades ago. A lot of his recent... Read More
‘The Ugly’ (얼굴) Review: In Yeon Sang-ho’s Dark Mystery, It’s the Soul That Needs the Surgery [B+] TIFF
Train to Busan’s Yeon Sang-ho returns to the low budget mystery thriller genre by adapting his debut graphic novel (Face) into a feature film. The... Read More
‘Eagles of the Republic’ Review: Behind the Scenes of an Empty, Dull Propaganda Film [C-] TIFF
If a propaganda film is dull, does it make a sound? Probably not, since the whole point of propaganda is to influence perception, which requires... Read More
‘Elisa’ Review: Di Costanzo’s Film is a Story Lost in Its Own Silence [B-] Venice
Leonardo Di Costanzo’s Elisa is a deliberate and methodical exploration of guilt, memory, and the psychology of extreme acts of violence. At the center is... Read More
‘Exit 8’ Review: The Viral Indie Horror Game Stuns on the Big Screen [B+] TIFF
It’s always a fun and exciting exercise to see how a videogame gets adapted or reinterpreted on the big screen. Such is the case with... Read More
‘Driver’s Ed’ Review: Bobby Farrelly’s Middle of the Roadtrip Teen Comedy is Stuck in Neutral [C] TIFF
Driver’s Ed is exactly what you would expect from a Bobby Farrelly teenage comedy — awkward, weird, unfunny, and shockingly tame despite all the swearing,... Read More
‘The Sun Rises on Us All’ Review: Cai Shangjun’s Latest is Often an Aimless Take on ‘Past Lives’ [C] Venice
The underlying theme of the 2025 Venice Film Festival seems to be the moral and ethical dilemmas faced by human beings: the implications of one’s... Read More
‘Maddie’s Secret’ Review: John Early’s Directorial Debut Isn’t Quite the Gag-Worthy Parody It Should Be [C+] TIFF
Once upon the 1980s there was a little NBCmovie about Kate, a seemingly perfect, beautiful housewife who harbored a dark and disturbing secret—she furtively ate... Read More
‘Jay Kelly,’ ‘Hamnet,’ ‘Pluribus,’ ‘Task’ and More on AFI’s Top 10 Films and Television of 2025 Lists 
‘Frankenstein’ to Receive Visionary Honor from Palm Springs International Film Awards 
Robert Yeoman to be Honored with American Society of Cinematographers’ Lifetime Achievement Award 
National Board of Review: ‘One Battle After Another’ Tops in Film, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor; Netflix Lands Four in Top 10