REVIEW: Gagarine [2021]

We’re dying here. Being the first man to travel into space, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s name became a global commodity. Even a housing project within a communist municipality outside of Paris took it as its moniker and invited the hero to come by and receive the cheers of the French people gathering outside on their balconies for a look. That was 1963, however. A complex possessing 370 apartments like Cité Gagarine was destined to take a beating once infrastructure and economics collided. Its disrepair cemented an eventual demolition by 2014; its…

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TIFF20 REVIEW: La nuit des rois [Night of the Kings] [2020]

The prince without a kingdom. Writer/director Philippe Lacôte looks to tell a tale of the Ivory Coast and its most recent two decades of civil war and strife with his latest film La nuit des rois [Night of the Kings]. With that also comes a necessity to speak about the youth who’ve recently taken up residence within the confines of his setting: La MACA. This prison—whose under-thirty population is currently hovering around eighty percent—shifts between the horrors of its inherent violence and the magical fantasy conjured when Lacôte was a…

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FANTASIA18 REVIEW: La nuit a dévoré le monde [The Night Eats the World] [2018]

I’m the one who’s not normal. Who would survive a zombie apocalypse? The extroverts who’re always part of a crowd, oblivious to the dire circumstances of their surroundings and therefore unable to escape the clutches of an oncoming horde mere inches away before recognition? No. Nor should they. When you think about the type of person you’re taught to become in order to live fulfilling lives, the image conjured is one of humanity and compassion. They’re the ones meant to exist in a world of increasing populations and melting pots…

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Picking Winners at the 85th Annual Academy Awards

Supporting Actress:Amy Adams: The MasterSally Field: LincolnAnne Hathaway: Les MisérablesHelen Hunt: The SessionsJacki Weaver: Silver Linings Playbook William Altreuter: It often seems to me that the Best Supporting categories are where the most interesting things are to be found in the Academy Award nominations, and this year is proving me right. What we often get—especially with Best Actress in a Supporting Role—are performances that really carry the movie, even though we tend not to notice. We also get actresses showing us what they can do against type, and that display of craft and professionalism is frequently rewarded. The…

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REVIEW: Holy Motors [2012]

“Too bad. I miss forests.” Is it science fiction, fantasy, drama, comedy, all or none of the above? As spoken by a character from within, beauty exists in the eye of the beholder and so does the importance of Leos Carax‘s Holy Motors. However, rather than positing the question of what happens when there no longer is a beholder, I wonder if the film actually waxes poetic on the truth that we are quickly becoming beholden to everything. Through enhancing technology and a flattening of the world, we have the…

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