Art Film

IN PRAISE OF LOVE — CANNES 2001

Art Film, Avant-Garde, Cannes Film Festival, Capsules Blog, Corporate Corruption, Cult Film, Experimental, FIVE STARS, French Cinema, French New Wave, Hollywood, Independent Cinema, Transgressive Cinema, War, Women's Cinema

September 11, 2024

Welcome! Groupthink doesn’t live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.…

KINDS OF KINDNESS — CANNES 2024

Art Film, BDSM, Cannes Film Festival, Capsules Blog, Dance, Experimental, Greek Cinema, sex, Sexploitation, , ZERO STARS

June 20, 2024

Since going mainstream with the shockingly delightful “Poor Things,” the heir-apparent to such Cinema heavyweights as Michael Haneke, Peter Greenaway,…

ASTEROID CITY

Art Film, Capsules Blog, Children's Cinema, Satire, ZERO STARS

January 13, 2024

How far the mediocre have fallen. “Asteroid City” is a fine thing to project on the wall of your next…

THE LIGHTHOUSE — SHOCKTOBER!

Art Film, Black and White, Capsules Blog, Classic Cinema, Cult Film, FIVE STARS, Magical Realism, SHOCKTOBER!,

October 24, 2023

Inestimable performances from Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe ramp up with excruciating suspense and terror. Cole Smithey.

CALIGULA — SHOCKTOBER!

Art Film, BDSM, Capsules Blog, Classic Cinema, Cult Film, FIVE STARS, Horror, LGBTQ, Political Satire, sex, Sexploitation, SHOCKTOBER!, , Transgressive Cinema, Women's Cinema

October 12, 2023

However distracting the film’s titillating use of nudity, and outrageous set pieces of sexual conflagrations, “Caligula” remains true to the…

THE NEON DEMON — SHOCKTOBER!

Art Film, BDSM, Cannes Film Festival, Capsules Blog, Cult Film, FOUR STARS, Horror, LGBTQ, SHOCKTOBER!

October 12, 2023

All high-contrast shiny surfaces and fetishized sensual fantasy, Nicholas Winding Refn’s ultra slick Neon Demon isn’t the redemption he was…

STALKER — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

Art Film, Capsules Blog, Criterion Collection, FOUR STARS, Podcast, Russian Cinema

June 27, 2017

Jean Paul Sartre’s ‘No Exit’ meets ‘Waiting For Godot” in Chernobyl in this influential filmic think piece from visionary Russian…

MANIFESTO

Art Film, Capsules Blog, FIVE STARS, Politics, Video Essay, Women's Cinema

May 10, 2017

By far the best film to come along in the first half of 2017, “Manifesto” is as thought and discussion-provoking…

NYMPHOMANIAC VOLUME II

Art Film, BDSM, Capsules Blog, Erotic, FIVE STARS, Transgressive Cinema, Women's Cinema

December 11, 2014

The decision to split Lars von Trier’s epic erotic journey into two parts is one of the worst cinematic travesties…

ERASERHEAD — CLASSIC FILM PICK

Art Film, Black and White, Capsules Blog, Classic Cinema, FIVE STARS, Horror, , Transgressive Cinema, Video Essay

December 1, 2014

David Lynch’s filmic immersion into the surreal world of his distinctly odd protagonist Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) comes through in…

STATIONS OF THE ELEVATED

Art, Art Film, Capsules Blog, Classic Cinema, Documentary, FIVE STARS

June 28, 2014

Through precise editing, Kirchheimer finds manifold layers of political and social resonance that he then transfers onto the viewer for…

L’AVVENTURA — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

Art Film, Capsules Blog, Classic Cinema, Criterion Collection, FIVE STARS, Italian Cinema, Video Essay, Women's Cinema

July 2, 2012

Michelangelo Antonioni’s “L’avventura” is the first in a trilogy of modernist relationship films the auteur created to reflect Italy’s post-war…

MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ: THE ARTIST IS PRESENT

Art Film, Capsules Blog, Documentary, TWO STARS, Women's Cinema

June 11, 2012

What starts out as an informative documentary — about an intriguing Serbian performance artist who has pushed the boundaries of…

COLOSSAL YOUTH — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

Art Film, Capsules Blog, Classic Cinema, Criterion Collection, FIVE STARS, Video Essay

June 4, 2012

“Ascetic,” “austere,” and “challenging” are typical adjectives that critics reach for when describing Portuguese auteur Pedro Costa’s enigmatic films. Costa’s…

KEYHOLE

Art Film, Capsules Blog, THREE STARS, Women's Cinema

April 14, 2012

“Keyhole” is a puzzle of a movie Freud would have a field day with. Maddin might have been loosely inspired…

4:44 LAST DAY ON EARTH

American Independent Cinema, Art Film, Capsules Blog, THREE STARS

March 20, 2012

Filmmaking legend Abel Ferrara adds his own installment to the cinema of apocalypse with a stagey reverie occuring, like Lars…

THIS IS NOT A FILM — CANNES 2011

Art Film, Cannes Film Festival, Capsules Blog, FOUR STARS, Iranian Cinema, Podcast

February 24, 2012

Facing almost certain jail time, and exiled to his apartment under a government-imposed house arrest and ban from making films,…

EL TOPO — CANNES 2006

Art Film, Cannes Film Festival, Capsules Blog, Chilean Cinema, Classic Cinema, FIVE STARS, Surrealism, Transgressive Cinema, Women's Cinema

December 4, 2011

Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1970 avant-garde showpiece of transgressive cinema revolutionized the commercial landscape of what was possible for an “art film”…