Olga movie review: coming out swinging for Ukraine
Poignant, pointed drama about a teenage Ukrainian gymnast fuses the personal and the political in a portrait of the spirit of Ukraine that is now being tested in the worst way. Incredibly affecting.
female protagonist
The Burning Sea (Nordsjøen) movie review: nightmare (fossil) fuel
Not terribly disastrous… until it is. Then movie-movie melodrama gives way to eco-cataclysm and new realms of planetary existential nightmare. I cannot recall a movie’s ending haunting me this much.
Cyrano movie review: out of tune
Peter Dinklage is wonderful, but this feels like a suggestion of a movie, not an actual one. It’s not romantic; there’s no humor, no absurdity. Its unpleasantness is as puzzling as it is inescapable.
Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché documentary review: a howl out of the past for today
A loving appreciation, but never a blinkered one, of the punk philosopher, a woman ahead of her time and still timely: iconoclastic, creative, ever-searching, a cultural observer who saw deep and far.
Maxima and Mothers of the Revolution documentaries review: women getting it done
Two new documentaries tell inspiring stories about ordinary women radicalized into revolutionary action, from anti-nuke protests in the 1980s to anti-corporate and anti-corruption activism today.
A Taste of Hunger movie review: salt fat acid heat
Contemplative and tenderly observed, a slow-burn romantic and family drama about two complicated, difficult people and what they’re willing to risk to achieve their dream. Plus: Scandi food porn!
The King’s Daughter movie review: a royal disaster
Ostensibly a movie in the same way that a Victorian folly is ostensibly a Japanese temple or a medieval castle. That is: not at all. Like a themed high-school prom from 1994, and an accidental horror.
Passing movie review: the realities and fallacies of race
Everything about this astonishing, just-plain-satisfying film feels like a revelation. Bone-deep subversive yet universal, dripping with a quiet dread yet also beautiful and beautifully wise.
Don’t Look Up movie review: is the sky falling?
I laughed a lot while also feeling sick to my stomach. As subtle as a sledgehammer, almost obnoxious… and yet it might as well be a documentary. Is it elegant? Is it art? Who the fuck cares?
Delicate State movie review: life goes on as the world falls apart
An ultra-low-budget marvel, a perspective on societal disruption and disorder as everyday precariousness comes for those previously sheltered from it. Barely speculative, maybe terrifyingly prescient.
