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[AFI Fest Review] Tu dors Nicole

It’s perhaps possible that the whimsical nature of Tu dors Nicole would be rather unbearable in the form of an American studio comedy, the kind that fills the a...

[AFI Fest Review] Over Your Dead Body

Perhaps in another version of Takashi Miike’s latest film (and his first to be receiving a proper US distribution deal since 2011’s 3D extravaganza Hari-Kiri), ...

[AFI Fest Review] Merchants of Doubt

Climate change deniers say a lot of ridiculous things, but there’s one specific straw man argument they frequently fall back on that is so insulting in its ridi...

[AFI Fest Review] Buzzard

In an episode of my podcast, The Cinephiliacs, colleague Vadim Rizov noted a humorous but mostly essential statement when describing his disappointment with the...

[AFI Fest Review] The Iron Ministry

While not technically made under the auspices of the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab, The Iron Ministry, directed by associated member J.P. Sniadecki, begins wi...

[Review] Beyond the Lights

The heady, emotional lyrics of Nina Simone’s Blackbird keep rising up under the skin of Gina Prince-Bythewood’s Beyond the Lights, revealing the earnest, strivi...

[AFI Fest Review] American Sniper

The thirty-one-month gap between the theatrical releases of 2011’s J. Edgar and this year’s Jersey Boys marked the longest such stretch in the forty-three-year-...

[Review] Thou Wast Mild & Lovely

She is not kidding when she says: "To those who feel that their cruelty is too cruel, their sadness too sad, I dedicate this film: an embrace." Writer/director ...