Film Reviews
Welcome to FilmFestSalon! Read our reviews on domestic films, foreign films and the classics.
Film: “Jacob’s Ladder”
“Jacob’s Ladder”, directed by Adrian Lyne from a script by Bruce Joel Rubin, was released in 1990, but I didn’t see it then. I only recently chanced upon it, in progress, on HBO, and was impressed enough to turn it off, so I could see all of it from the beginning. I’m glad I did…
Film: “Cam”
This is a tough one. Yet, despite serious story problems, I recommend “Cam” for its unusual subject, its swift and often exhilarating pacing and the fervent performance of Madeline Brewer in the lead role. The film was directed by David Goldhaber and written by Isa Mazzei, and was supposedly based on her personal experience as…
Film: “The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open”
A Canadian prize-winner from 2019, “The Body Remembers when the World Broke Open”, was co-directed and written by Elle-Maija Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn (the film’s title comes from an essay by Billy-Ray Belcourt). It is one of the latest adventures into the single shot derby, in which, except for the pre-credit sequence of about fifteen…
Film: “Advantageous”
“Advantageous”, directed by Jennifer Phang, from a script by Jacqueline Kim and the director, is a provocative but ultimately confused dystopian satire, from 2015, about how women will face challenges in a future society where the economy is deeply committed to artificial intelligence. Co-writer Kim also played the lead role, Gwen. Those challenges, however, are…
Film: “Warehoused”
I saw “Warehoused”, a funny and pungent Mexican film from 2015 on Netflix. Directed by Jack Zagha Kababie, from a script by David Desola, I found its deadpan absurdist comedy quite refreshing. In five sections, it follows the apprenticeship of a young man, Nin, to become the manager of a warehouse after the retirement of…
Film: “Weathering With You”
Like many others, I went to Makota Shinkai’s new film, “Weathering With You” with both hopefulness and unease. It was his follow-up to the glorious “Your Name“, an international blockbuster, which I saw last year. The earlier film had prepared me to expect sophistication, wondrous animation and psychological depth, which are distinguishing aspects of his…
Film: “Enemy”
“Enemy”, a Canadian film from 2013, knows how to hold the viewer for its hour-and-a-half running time. I caught it on Netflix the other day, and it’s definitely worth seeking out. It is a good illustration of a perennially popular genre film that I call the “psychological puzzler”. Directed by Denis Villeneuve, it stars Jake…
Film: “Knives Out”
“Knives Out”, written and directed by Rian Johnson, has an Oscar nomination for Johnson’s original screenplay. The critical and commercial success of this immensely gratifying whodunnit is due, in very large part, to the fact that they don’t make them like this any more. At least not for the big screen. The enormous popularity of…
Film: “Uncut Gems”
Sometimes it’s interesting to see two very different films close together. I have Netflix, and settled comfortably on my sofa to watch “The Two Popes” the other day. The soothing comfort soon made me fall asleep, but “The Two Popes” helped it along. Sorry, but I don’t watch movies for a good rest. But the…
Film: “The Day a Pig Fell Into the Well”
One of the features from the New Korean Cinema festival at Lincoln Center, Hong Sang-soo’s “The Day a Pig Fell into the Well”, which was his feature debut in 1996, is a grimly absorbing view of sexual relations in modern South Korea (by the way, there is no pig and no well, and it seems…