NYFF 2017: ‘The Rape of Recy Taylor’
This haunting documentary about a black woman assaulted by six white men in 1944 Alabama pivots deftly from crime story to history lesson without losing track of the human pain at its core.
Film Festivals
TIFF 2017: ‘The Shape of Water’
The Shape of Water comes off as uninformed political correctness, which is more detrimental to its cause than it is progressive.
TIFF 2017: ‘The Royal Hibiscus Hotel’
Though a typical rom-com, Ishaya Bako's film is never boring.
TIFF 2017: ‘Never Steady, Never Still’
The troubled characters in this film deserve a more complex, nuanced approach.
TIFF 2017: ‘Ta peau si lisse’ (A Skin So Soft)
Denis Côté introduces viewers to five bodybuilders, the alternative beauty of their insular community, and their magnificent descent into nature.
Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2017: ‘Black Code’ + ‘Bill Nye’ + ‘The Blood Is at the Doorstep’
A trio of documentaries on ostensibly diverse subjects (suppression of online dissent, a climate change crusade, a family’s struggle for justice after a police shooting) all circle back to the fight for agency in the modern world.
After Images: Poland’s 41st Gdynia Film Festival
From painters to interrogators, some of the finest films at Gdynia Film Festival 2016 dramatized real-life figures from the country’s past.
Independent Film Festival Boston 2016: ‘High-Rise’
High-Rise may not reach the heights it aspires to, but the chaos of trying to get there makes for a good time.
Independent Film Festival Boston 2016: ‘The Lovers and the Despot’
An unbelievable story anchors The Lovers and the Despot, but a reluctance to frame it in an insightful way cripples it.
Independent Film Festival Boston 2016: ‘The Blackcoat’s Daughter’
Taut, brutal, and atmospheric, The Blackcoat's Daughter is a bold but slightly derivative effort from debut director Osgood Perkins.
Independent Film Festival Boston 2016: ‘The Anthropologist’
Spry and crisp, The Anthropologist is a solid documentary that avoids bearing the weight of the austere pessimism surrounding climate change.
Independent Film Festival Boston 2016: ‘Under the Shadow’
Set in war-torn Iran, Under the Shadow executes satisfying scares against the backdrop of an intelligent social drama.
