Film Reviews
Welcome to FilmFestSalon! Read our reviews on domestic films, foreign films and the classics.
Film: “Burning”
Lee Chong-dong’s brilliant film, Burning, from South Korea, is an international prize-winner. It is sure to be a strong contender for best foreign Oscar. It’s a genre film, in a way, the genre being stories based on William Faulkner’s famous line: “The past isn’t dead yet. It isn’t even past.”(from “Requiem for A Nun”). The…
Film: “The Sisters Brothers”
A good film will often seem even better if you go in without knowing much about it. I went with my friend Carlos to see “The Sisters Brothers”. I knew nothing except that the title was too “cute” (often a warning), but he had read the novel it was based on, liked it and was…
Festival
Here is the report from this year’s Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) by our correspondent, Evelyn J. Mocbeichel: HIFF 2018 Film Festival Offered Eclectic Variety By Evelyn J. Mocbeichel all fotos by Herb Mocbeichel October 15, 2018 The weather couldn’t have been nicer for this year’s Hampton International Film Festival (HIFF) held for five days…
Film: “Shoplifters”
A main slate selection at the New York Film Festival, “Shoplifters” is extraordinary and original. Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda wrote and directed the film, and he clearly meant it to both entertain, and to disturb. The film was the surprise winner of the Palme D’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. It establishes a tone…
Film: “Searching”
A new suspense film, “Searching”, written by Aneesh Chaganty and Sev Ohanian, and directed by Chaganty, is nothing if not original. You’ve probably never seen anything like it; I know I haven’t. The story – basically a father’s search for his missing teenage daughter – is told in a series of computer screen entries that…
Film: “First Reformed”
Veteran filmmaker Paul Schrader’s latest film, “First Reformed”, is clearly a very personal statement. While dramatically bumpy, it is an ultimately persuasive story of a Christian reverand’s crisis of faith in a world seemingly intent on destroying itself. Ethan Hawke gives a fully committed performance – certainly a career peak – that firmly holds an…
Film: “Hereditary”
Hereditary, a new scare-fest written and directed by Ari Aster, is now in wide release. If there’s a genre that it best fits into, let’s call it horror-puzzler. Strange and awful things happen to a family, but who is doing those terrible things to whom or, more exactly, who is making the family do them…
Film: “The Rider”
Sometimes it’s better to know as little as possible about a film before seeing it. All I knew about Chloe Zhou’s “The Rider” was that it was her second film, and had already won a number of festival prizes. I found it a strong story, confidently told, but there was something about it that was…
Film: “Godard Mon Amour”
French filmmaker Michael Hazanavicius, the Oscar winner for “The Artist”, presents another comic fable about a film genius in “Godard Mon Amour”. But this one is a real person, in fact, a living legend. Granted, this is a highly specialized entertainment, but for a cineaste like myself, most of it was very enjoyable. Jean Luc Godard…
Film: “The Endless”
A new film, “The Endless”, is kind of intriguing, if not particularly original. But the almost universally enthusiastic reviews are a mystery. I guess being old enough to remember countless other cheap indies from the past hampered my enjoyment. Writer Justin Benson stars with Aaron Moorhead as brothers who had been raised since childhood in…