Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor (part of the Oscar-winning collective behind No Other Land), have returned with NAZA. Now playing in theaters, and soon to follow online, it is another striking piece of documentary and journalism that illuminates the horrors of the last three years in the conflict between Israel and Gaza.
NYFF Journal: Double Freedom
Eric reports from the New York Film Festival on Double Freedom, Lisandro Alonso’s a quasi-remake of his 2001 debut, La Libertad.
The Social Reckoning is too much and too little too late
A lot of time has passed since the Social Network landed; the sequel feels almost as tired as all of us are.
NYFF Journal: My Undesirable Friends – Part II: Exile
Eric reports from the New York Film Festival on My Undesirable Friends – Part II: Exile, Julia Loktev’s massive globe-spanning documentary about dissident Russian journalists.
NYFF Journal: My Wife Cries
Eric reports from the New York Film Festival on My Wife Cries, as wonderful a film Angela Schanelec has ever made.
NYFF Journal: The Diary of a Chambermaid
Eric reports from the New York Film Festival on The Diary of a Chambermaid, Radu Jude’s most sentimental tale yet.
NYFF Journal: Hanabi
Eric reports from the New York Film Festival on Ana Vaz’s beautiful new feature, Hanabi.
Anne Hathaway is fully committed to the bit in Verity
This film flits somewhere between the absurd and the ridiculous, while somehow remaining predictable. This movie, directed by Michael Showalter, is flawed (and often embarrassingly so) but has something going for it: Anne Hathaway is fully committed to the part.
Digger… what the heck did I just watch
It doesn’t take a lot of imagination for most Americans to understand the concept and realities of the world in which Digger lives. A ridiculously wealthy man living on his own save a nearly-deceased cat he holds incredibly dear and a few employees that flow in and out of his rooms like water at his bidding. On the day we are introduced to him, he finds out the drilling he so desperately had been pining after in Alaska has caused a crack in the ice shelf creating a brand new and incredibly dangerous speeding projectile of an iceberg headed for Norway. With no warning, things shift and you’re seeing the story in a whole new light. Tension galore throughout the two hour run time and you’re not sure if you hate it or love it, but it got your attention.
In La Gradiva, a modern coming-of-age among ancient ruins
There are so many fantastic French coming-of-age films that to direct one, especially one as self-consciously grand as Marine Atlan’s La Gradiva necessitates contending with that most hallowed of national traditions. In some ways, La Gradiva is an epic-sized version of countryside group portraits like Graduate First or Wild Reeds, following a class of French high school seniors on a field trip to Pompeii just before they receive their college admissions results. Amidst the ruins of the ancient city, the film is about a group of children on the cusp of adulthood who in the process of connecting with ancient tragedy, find themselves confronted with their own mortality.