Luke Hicks’ Top 10 Films of 2021
Following The Film Stage's collective top 50 films of 2021, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.
Musi...
Luke Hicks
Apichatpong Weerasethakul on the Journey of Memoria, Tilda Swinton’s Devotion, and the Collective Theatrical Experience
Whether shooting in the enspirited jungles of his native Thailand or the mystical rainforests of Colombia, Apichatpong Weerasethakul has a sleeping problem. Hi...
Michael Bauman on Lighting Licorice Pizza and Bringing Paul Thomas Anderson’s Vision to Life
Training Day, Iron Man, The Master, Munich, Ford v Ferrari, The Bling Ring, Nightcrawler, Ray, Birds of Prey, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, Syriana, The Conju...
Simon Rex on Taking Risks with Red Rocket and the Directors He’d Like to Work With
“Best Oral three years in a row,” Mikey Saber brags yet again to a disinterested stranger. As if the thirtysomething, out-of-work porn star’s unprompted self-a...
Sean Baker on Moral Complexities, Guerrilla Filmmaking, and His Strange Cannes Experience with Red Rocket
For better or worse, you will hear about Red Rocket. From who? It’s a coin toss between a raving cinephile and a sanctimonious pop culture prognosticator behin...
Julia Ducournau on the Transformative Arc of Titane and Empathetic Values of Dark Humor
With her sophomore feature, French writer, director, and provocateur Julia Ducournau has secured her place in film history and proven herself a serious talent....
Paris, 13th District Review: Jacques Audiard Weaves a Zestful Yet Underwhelming Tapestry
There is no such thing as a typical Jacques Audiard film. Take his last three as examples: in 2012 he captured the trauma-induced romance between a wayfaring f...
Oliver Stone on Revisiting JFK’s Assassination and the Government’s Control Over Media
In 1991, Oliver Stone re-opened America’s deepest wound with JFK, a rousing, star-studded, 189-minute account of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s i...
Cannes Review: The Year of the Everlasting Storm is a Creative Look at Globally Unifying Trauma
Anthology films like The Year of the Everlasting Storm, wherein a flurry of esteemed directors create short segments tethered to a common theme, lack a strong ...
Cannes Review: With The Velvet Underground, Todd Haynes Crafts a Visually Harmonious Documentary
If you told people in 1967 that Andy Warhol’s house band just released one of the most revered rock albums of all-time, they would ask what they're called, and...
Luke Hicks
A New York City film journalist by way of Austin, TX, Luke is an arts enthusiast who earned his master’s studying film philosophy and ethics at Duke. He thinks every occasion should include one of the following: coffee, whiskey, tea, gin, beer, or olives.