Drama

Abortion is one of those topics that are guaranteed to generate strong opinions, regardless of where one stands on the political and religious scale. At the end of the day, it is just another medical…

LEVINE. To those even decently well-versed in the classical music world, the name James Levine is likely to bring forth a slew of contradicting reactions. On one end is a sense of deep reverence: Levine…

The legacy of South Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo seems largely separated from the stylized and dramatized sensibilities of his Korean New Wave contemporaries — the more minimalistic and theatrically conversational mise-en-scéne of his films seems…

While it’s easy to look at the repertoire of films about COVID and deem them redundant, oftentimes incredibly lazy ways to artistically reflect a universal experience, perhaps the most distinctive among them have been the…

Florian Zeller surprised the film world two years ago with his debut feature film, The Father. That film is one of the masterpieces of the 2020s, and it features what may be the best performance…

Steven Spielberg has offered plenty of magical dreams over the years. It’s redundant to list his filmography as his repertoire speaks for itself. Steven Spielberg is a name synonymous with film. His iconic status is…

Leave it to Claire Denis to create the best representation of the pandemic onscreen yet. There are no Karens yelling over masks, no contagion spreading like wildfire. Instead, masks are a visual motif for the…

I’ll admit it, when Neon announced that Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s new film, Memoria, would embark on a never-ending, roadshow-style film tour across the country forever — meaning there will never be a streaming or Blu-ray release…

Clean is a passion project of sorts for one Mr. Adrien Brody. He serves as the film’s star, co-writer, co-producer, and even composer. It took about a decade to get this film from his imagination, to…

Adapted from author Annie Ernaux’s quasi-memoir of the same title, and having instantly propelled itself into a modern canon of films about the stark realities of abortion — among them being Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3…

The media is composed of a large segment of our contemporary society, being the main channel of collective mass communication. The media consists of broadcasting, publishing, and the internet, which includes, but is not limited…

Driving can be a profound experience. It is difficult to articulate the feeling of what it’s like to ponder a great many things while you drive in solitude, or that quiet mutual moment of bonding…

At 83 years old, Ridley Scott is still cranking out consistently great and entertaining films. Just last month, he released The Last Duel which is the frontrunner for the most underseen and under-appreciated film of 2021. Now…

Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and caldron bubble. It’s a story we all know. One of Shakespeare’s many classics, The Tragedy of Macbeth takes pride in being a new spin on the 1606…

In an era where we’re overwhelmed with features made during quarantine, it’s hard to find a film that strays from the rest and is actually worthwhile watching. While Language Lessons doesn’t necessarily go above and…

Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman once said, “no art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.” To many of us,…

There’s a line that creators of topical art must keep in mind as it’s being crafted — so easy is it to become melodramatic, “preachy”, or unrealistic. The slightest misstep can take a viewer out…

With 2021’s Cannes Grand Prix win on its back, Compartment No. 6 brings to life a self-reflective, alcohol-filled drama. Establishing an unlikely friendship between a Finnish student and a Russian miner, Laura (Seidi Haarla) and…

To discuss Pedro Almodóvar is to acknowledge not just the transgressive streak of his early filmography, but also the post-Julieta change of pace that the Spanish auteur has undergone with his latest few works. With…

Manitoban filmmaker Rhayne Vermette’s Ste. Anne is a fascinating directorial debut — a loosely constructed tapestry of hypnotic sounds and grainy cinematography, and an enigmatic 80-minute experience that operates in pure abstraction. Unfolding a series…

Daniela (Daniela Zahlner) can’t sleep lately. After spending some time traveling in New York and returning to Berlin, she’s slowly come to the realization that her continued insomnia isn’t just from her jet lag anymore,…

Wife of a Spy won the Silver Bear for Best Director at last year’s Venice Film Festival. I had heard of director and co-writer Kiyoshi Kurosawa (not related to the late great master of Japanese…

Can the literary art form still survive in this hyperactive, Twitter-operating, modern age? Bookworms venturing through desolated libraries and soon-to-be bankrupt bookstores may find themselves out of time, yearning for a time where a 400-page…

Nadav Lapid’s Synonyms caused quite a stir when it unexpectedly took out the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 2019. The film loosely based on Lapid’s own life about an Israeli man who flees…

Céline Sciamma has once again made one of the best films of the year with her latest project and follow-up to the brilliant Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Petite Maman. The film follows Nelly (Joséphine Sanz),…

A common complaint regarding movies based on plays is that they feel like exactly that: a play made into a movie. Detractors often cite the transition from stage to screen as being too noticeable, remarking…

Despite how much social media is seemingly at the center of our lives, there are still only precious few good movies about the subject. What is it that makes it so hard to capture? Is…

Biopics have long been a crowd favorite. From the 1985 Best Picture winner Amadeus to the modern classic The Social Network, audiences are enamored by the idea of watching a biographical tale unfold on the…

To say that a two-and-a-half-hour-long film is on the shorter side of a director’s filmography may sound like a deeply confused claim, but for Filipino auteur Lav Diaz — whose works are less like films…

Few snippets of on-screen text in modern foreign cinema have been as intriguing as the opening blurb of Tsai Ming-liang’s latest film, Days — “This film is intentionally unsubtitled.” — not just because it points to a…