Reviews

Like its hero, Tuner has perfect pitch

Amid festivals clogged with so many films with “prestige” ambitions, it’s a thrillingly welcome jolt when a really fun movie executes on a clever concept and is impeccably entertaining from top to bottom. And that was exactly the case when the good word of Tuner started rippling through queues at Telluride before putting on the full charm offensive in Toronto a week later. Making the transition from pulse-pounding documentary filmmaking to small-stakes crime romance, Daniel Roher does exactly that with a film that just moves from the jump and never lets up until the closing credits.

Reviews

Miroirs No. 3 explores the eerie kindness of strangers

With something always tantalizingly out of reach, Christian Petzold’s films carry a certain rigor of academic riddles, albeit koans populated by characters nursing their own quiet tragedies. With vibrant interiority, Paula Beer’s melancholic university music student becomes a makeshift bandage for a rural family in the wake of a freak car crash.

Festivals Reviews

Rian Johnson’s terrific Knives Out mysteries hit peak form with Wake Up Dead Man

The latest Knives Out finds onetime boxer turned small town priest wrapped up in a thorny and inexplicable murder of a controversial Monsignor. A warm embrace in a world of wolves, this third iteration in the ongoing Benoit Blanc series represents a major emotional leap for the franchise while demonstrating its dexterity to reshape itself to meet the the current mood.