March 26, 2010
WHAT IT IS: Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born destitute, has the most gifted olfactory sense ever bestowed on a human being. He yearns to learn how to distill all smells, including a woman’s. HOW IT IS: Twyker’s Perfume is strange but mesmerizing, like a song you can’t forget. It slowly creeps in, half serial killer movie, half meditation on life, talent and […]
March 22, 2010
A reviewer compared City of God to Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990) and many parallels could be made between the two. As they both fall into the genre of gangster films, they depict violence in a raw, uninhibited way, in a realist fashion. City of God, with its documentary-style aesthetic—camera shakes, voice-over narration, etc., uses that realism to emphasize its story’s […]
April 2, 2014
The highlight of 12 Years a Slave is Steve McQueen’s direction. The arresting scenes of the film are the moments of sheer beauty.
April 20, 2010
Held together almost entirely by the strength of Gyllenhall’s performance, Sherrybaby is one of the best independent movies of the decade.
March 26, 2010
What’s most interesting about A Silent Love is its comical approach to its subject. There is much in common with the tongue-in-cheek of Mexican dramas.