There’s a notion that every one of us has fallen into at one point or another: great art is depressing. It’s what drives the Oscars, film festival praise, top 10 lists (if you can think of any critics who explicitly or implicitly declared insightful relationship tragedy Blue Valentine to be superior to insightful relationship action […]

If Amores perros had not premiered in the summer of 2000, it would be necessary to lie and say that it had done so; offhand I cannot name another movie which has ever thus stood at the forefront of what would turn out to be a number of different trends in the decade to follow, […]

Proof that certain Hollywood tendencies aren’t unique to Hollywood at all, the fine director of the perhaps overly-rewarded The Crime of Father Amaro has come out with his first feature in seven years, and it too is a fine thing. Indeed, the only thing that keeps Backyard from transcending “fine” and turning into “pretty good, […]

The Coens, the Dardennes, the Quays. Filmmaker brothers tend to come in matched sets, working together at all times. Yet it is eminently clear in Carlos Cuarón’s debut feature as a director that he is not receiving any tips or aid from his famous sibling Alfonso, although that man did serve as his producer; and […]

Blame it on a lack of sleep or whatever you like, but at around 3:00 AM, when I finished this review, I somehow failed to publish it. I think you will find it not worth the wait. At first, it seems that El Topo will be a fairly standard narrative film, albeit one made by […]

Carlos Reygadas’s Silent Light is a decidedly unconventional motion picture, playing by so few of the rules that govern moviemaking, whether commercial or “art” films, that I feel almost uncomfortable calling it a movie at all. Certainly there are all the usual paradigms about cinematography does this, editing does that, writing does the other thing, […]

Whenever people use the phrase “a fairy tale for grown-ups,” I always get a little cranky, because it suggests something that is not true: that adults cannot watch fairy tales unless they have been tarted up. Adults like fantasy as much as anyone. I think it’s also mostly inaccurate, anyway. Nine times in ten, a […]