Transgender issues have been such hot-button topics in the news lately that people may not be prepared for how muted and delicate Tom Hooper’s THE DANISH GIRL is.  The film, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival and then screened at Toronto, before beginning a quest for awards later in the year, barely deals […]

  BREATHE (Bleecker Street – Oct 13):  BREATHE wasn’t the favored Triumph of the Human Spirit drama at Toronto this year; that title went to Stronger, with Jake Gyllanhaal as a survivor of the Boston Marathon bombing.  Not having seen Stronger, I can’t compare the two, but Breathe has plenty in it to please audiences […]

  THE SUNLIT NIGHT (no distrib):  The last thing one would have expected from the director of the genuinely scabrous Wetlands was a follow-up that seems to trying to meld NY Jewish comedy with the kind of enchanted romcom spirit of Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero.  But that’s what David Wnendt has given us, and the […]

  HUMAN FACTORS:  Is Ronny Trocker’s Human Factors intended as a political allegory?  The married couple at its center are the German Jan (Mark Waschke) and the French Nina (Sabine Timoteo), and there’s a plot point about whether the ad agency they run will take on a political party as a client.  If that’s the […]

  GOD’S COUNTRY (no distrib):  A deliberative character study that’s also a thriller of sorts, anchored by one of the best performances of Thandiwe Newton’s career.  When two hunters (Joris Jarsky and Yellowstone‘s Jefferson White) park their pick-up on college professor Sandra Guidry’s (Newton) land for their convenience, they’re messing with the wrong person.  Sandra’s […]

  THE BOY AND THE HERON (GKids – Dec. 8):  Hiyao Miyazaki, a legend of animation (Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke), had announced his retirement as a feature film director a decade ago, upon the release of The Wind Rises.  But at the age of 82, he’s returned with The Boy and the […]

  BABYGIRL (A24 – Dec. 25):  We’ve reached the point where Nicole Kidman’s work ethic has become something of a running gag.  In the past 5 years alone, she’s appeared in an incredible eight feature films and seven TV series, with three more series on tap for 2025 (so far).  Truth be told, it can feel […]

> DRIVE is a self-conscious genre movie, and those are tricky propositions.  On the one hand, you need to make your existential or other textual statement with all the artistry at your command; on the other, you still have to fulfill the demands of the genre you’ve chosen.  If you do it right, you have […]