Michael Winterbottom’s ‘Shoshana’ and the Slow Death of the Prolific Auteur
Like Steven Soderbergh, director Michael Winterbottom has become very good at shapeshifting, making his work difficult to shoehorn into a genre.
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Batman Returns’ Delirious Psychosexual Tension
The stitches, the shadows, the skin and the other psychosexual tension and animalistic identities of Batman Returns.
Outland’s Labor Politics Are As Brutal as Jupiter’s Moon
Sci-fi western Outland is literal in its depiction of corrupt corporations and worker exploitation, but it won’t give easy answers.
‘It Was Just an Accident’ Hides Life’s Extremes in Plain Sight
Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or-winning revenge thriller, It Was Just an Accident, slices into memory and the desire for revenge with a double-edged knife.
One Battle After Another’s Appealing Radical Heart
One Battle After Another‘s sympathetic portrayals of left-wing radicalized groups seems an impossible-to-resist target of the pearl-clutching, but it’s been less of a lightning rod than expected on that front.
One Battle After Another’s 1960s Politics Make for a Good Show and a Dead End
In Paul Thomas Anderson’s dark comedy One Battle After Another, the liberationist politics of the 1960s make for a good show and a dead end.
Star Wars: Rebels’ Strategist in the Shadows
Star Wars: Rebels‘ blue-skinned Thrawn is a fictional echo of what America needs in these times: cultural intelligence, emotional control, and long-term thinking.
‘Streets of Fire’ as Global Myth
Streets of Fire boldly rejects conventional genre boundaries, merging action, rock opera, MTV video, and neo-noir into an audacious and stylized urban myth that resonates globally.
‘Keep Quiet’ Pits Inner Peace Against Social Turmoil
Crime drama Keep Quiet may seem abrupt and pared-back, but there’s confidence and depth in its study of inner peace amidst social turmoil.
‘The Betrayal’ Returns in All Its Nihilistic Glory
Like its filmmaker Tokuzô Tanaka, The Betrayal has been largely sidelined by other jidaigeki (historical) and chanbara (samurai) films in Japan’s traditional canon, but this revelatory new release rewrites the record.
Superman’s Message of Moral Reciprocity
The resonance of the Golden Rule across time and societies is one way that the reciprocity norm, and its signifier, Superman, combine the secular with the sacred.
‘Ghost in the Shell’ Haunts for a Second Life
For those who appreciate rich world-building, cyberpunk aesthetics, and speculative philosophy, Rupert Sanders’ Ghost in the Shell remains a rare cinematic treat, not a betrayal of its source material.