Illustrations by Maddie Fischer.Throughout the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, we'll be publishing a wide variety of interviews, dispatches, capsules, ballots, and lists. Subscribe to the Weekly Edit newsletter for exclusive contributions from filmmakers, critics, and programmers on the Croisette.Interviews“A Whole World: A Conversation with Andrea Arnold” by Caitlin QuinlanThe Carrosse d’Or–winner describes her raw, lived-in films as cinematic jigsaw puzzles.Dispatches“The Center Will Not Hold” by Leonardo GoiWhile the festival maintained its routine ostrich-like stance, some of the most intriguing films dove right into our troubled times.“Final Warnings” by Daniel KasmanQuentin Dupieux’s latest and Jean-Luc Godard’s last interrogate the death and life of great cinema.“Let There Be Light” by Leonardo GoiBeyond works by established filmmakers, some of the festival’s most singular titles were films from new and emerging voices.Capsules“First Impressions” by Giovanni Marchini Camia, Jordan Cronk, Beatrice Loayza,...
- 5/28/2024
- MUBI
At long last, the Lou Ye’s Venice 2019 premiere Saturday Fiction is arriving stateside. After some delays presumably caused by the pandemic, Strand Releasing will now bow the slow-burn spy thriller at IFC Center on April 22 and the first trailer has arrived.
Led by Gong Li and set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai on the cusp of World War II, the film follows acclaimed actress Jean Yu, who has returned to Shanghai from China after a long absence. Jean Yu is in rehearsals for a play to be directed by a former lover (Mark Chao), but she seems to have ulterior motives, functioning as a double agent and gathering intelligence for the Allies, including the fateful realization of Japan’s imminent attack on Pearl Harbor.
Mark Asch said in his TIFF 2019 review, “A filmmaker perhaps too prolific for his own good, Lou Ye takes his latest spin ‘round the festival circuit with Saturday Fiction,...
Led by Gong Li and set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai on the cusp of World War II, the film follows acclaimed actress Jean Yu, who has returned to Shanghai from China after a long absence. Jean Yu is in rehearsals for a play to be directed by a former lover (Mark Chao), but she seems to have ulterior motives, functioning as a double agent and gathering intelligence for the Allies, including the fateful realization of Japan’s imminent attack on Pearl Harbor.
Mark Asch said in his TIFF 2019 review, “A filmmaker perhaps too prolific for his own good, Lou Ye takes his latest spin ‘round the festival circuit with Saturday Fiction,...
- 3/18/2022
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Few film books in recent memory made waves like Adam Nayman’s Paul Thomas Anderson: Masterworks, a too-rare melange of authorial talent, topical interest, and opulent presentation. Last year Nayman and I spoke at length about the tome that no doubt you’ve seen in bookstores (big and small alike) since.
Nayman has returned with David Fincher: Mind Games, another Abrams-published doorstop on another double-capital-a American Auteur, lined again with essays that surprise in their capacity to find new perspectives and provocative readings on films for which there seemed no more room. Finally able to talk in person—thus, you’ll (please) read, at greater length—we sat down for a talk on writing thousands of words on someone for whom a consistent critical standing is tougher than meets the eye.
The Film Stage: I was looking at our interview from last year, where you said something that keyed...
Nayman has returned with David Fincher: Mind Games, another Abrams-published doorstop on another double-capital-a American Auteur, lined again with essays that surprise in their capacity to find new perspectives and provocative readings on films for which there seemed no more room. Finally able to talk in person—thus, you’ll (please) read, at greater length—we sat down for a talk on writing thousands of words on someone for whom a consistent critical standing is tougher than meets the eye.
The Film Stage: I was looking at our interview from last year, where you said something that keyed...
- 11/23/2021
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Atlantis (Valentyn Vasyanovych)
In Valentyn Vasyanovych’s post-apocalyptic Atlantis, the sky above Ukraine hangs like a sheet of steel, a uniform mass of clouds bucketing water onto the mud-covered wasteland down below. The year is 2025, and the country has just emerged victorious–if shattered–from a war with Russia. It’s a conflict all too steeped in the decade’s real-life skirmishes between Ukraine and its neighbor to come across as strictly fictional, and that’s the thing that makes Atlantis so disturbing. It’d be tempting to call Vasyanovych’s a dystopia, were it not for that fact that, all through its 108 minutes, everything about it feels almost...
Atlantis (Valentyn Vasyanovych)
In Valentyn Vasyanovych’s post-apocalyptic Atlantis, the sky above Ukraine hangs like a sheet of steel, a uniform mass of clouds bucketing water onto the mud-covered wasteland down below. The year is 2025, and the country has just emerged victorious–if shattered–from a war with Russia. It’s a conflict all too steeped in the decade’s real-life skirmishes between Ukraine and its neighbor to come across as strictly fictional, and that’s the thing that makes Atlantis so disturbing. It’d be tempting to call Vasyanovych’s a dystopia, were it not for that fact that, all through its 108 minutes, everything about it feels almost...
- 1/22/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
We recently shared our list of the best undistributed films of 2020 and at the very top of my personal list for the ones I hoped would get picked up first was John Gianvito’s Her Socialist Smile, a fascinating documentary exploring Helen Keller’s life-long passion and activism for socialism and fighting for the working class. Thankfully, it’s now available to stream for free courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, with this wide accessibility hopefully serving as an education for some.
Mark Asch said in his New York Film Festival review, “You may have known that Helen Keller was a comrade, a life-long socialist and member of the Industrial Workers of the World; in Her Socialist Smile, John Gianvito assembles Keller’s political addresses and writings into a portrait of a warrior for social justice and a passionate, insightful proselytizer of Marxist thought. She instigated a Braille translation...
Mark Asch said in his New York Film Festival review, “You may have known that Helen Keller was a comrade, a life-long socialist and member of the Industrial Workers of the World; in Her Socialist Smile, John Gianvito assembles Keller’s political addresses and writings into a portrait of a warrior for social justice and a passionate, insightful proselytizer of Marxist thought. She instigated a Braille translation...
- 1/10/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
We’ve now entered a new year, and one that will hopefully go better than the prior one. As we look towards the cinematic offerings of 2021, we’ll soon be publishing our comprehensive previews of the best films we’ve already seen on the festival circuit as well as most-anticipated new films, but first today brings a look at January.
While some high-profile December theatrical releases will make their digital debuts, such as Promising Young Woman, News of the World, One Night in Miami…, Pieces of a Woman, and more, this month also brings notable festival favorites finally arriving. Check out our roundup below.
11. Identifying Features (Fernanda Valadez; Jan. 22)
The winner of the Audience Award and Best Screenplay in the World Cinema (Dramatic) section at Sundance Film Festival last year, we recently caught up with Identifying Features at New Directors/New Films last month. Mark Asch said in our review,...
While some high-profile December theatrical releases will make their digital debuts, such as Promising Young Woman, News of the World, One Night in Miami…, Pieces of a Woman, and more, this month also brings notable festival favorites finally arriving. Check out our roundup below.
11. Identifying Features (Fernanda Valadez; Jan. 22)
The winner of the Audience Award and Best Screenplay in the World Cinema (Dramatic) section at Sundance Film Festival last year, we recently caught up with Identifying Features at New Directors/New Films last month. Mark Asch said in our review,...
- 1/4/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
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