1420 Best Film & TV Releases Translated Into Mandarin (Page 43)

There has been something of a teen thriller renaissance of late. Shows like Cruel Summer, The Wilds, Panic, and Outer Banks have mined the teen streaming audience to deliver stories that all had at least something about them worth watching. Joining the fold this week is Peacock’s One of Us Is Lying, an adaptation of the Karen McManus book of the same name.  Continue Reading →

Have you ever spoken to a friend who was tangentially involved in a big event? They know the players, they saw some of it go down, but they’re missing pieces of information. They lack the perspective of someone directly involved and the insights that come with that. That’s the experience of watching The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Continue Reading →

Alexandre Koberidze's mystical romance is lovely and well-performed, but overly insistent on its epic status. This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.) Like Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy as Lazzaro or Olivier Laxe’s Mimosas, Alexandre Koberidze’s What We Do When We Look at the Sky? begins as a promising addition to the subgenre of modern-day religious fables. But ultimately, it left me shrugging my shoulders. Continue Reading →

As Shakespeare famously opined: What’s in a name? Based on the religious nature of the character’s names in Valdimar Jóhannson’s debut film, Lamb, there must be something allegorical about the movie’s plot. Yet, as compelling as Lamb is, in the final analysis, its religious symbolism amounts to little. Continue Reading →

The first two entries in the newest Welcome to the Blumhouse collection are a flawed pair of scary films. Welcome to Welcome to the Blumhouse! This annual anthology collection of four new horror films from Get Out producers Blumhouse Productions, debuting on Amazon streaming, is back after its inaugural run in 2020. Conceptually, this seems like a nifty idea, a way to tackle bold new filmmaking concepts or styles that may not be as broadly accessible as theatrical Blumhouse fare like Fantasy Island. Unfortunately, titles like The Lie made the first iteration of Welcome to the Blumhouse feel like a grab-bag of movies that just weren’t good enough for the big screen. This year, the four movies comprising the second edition of Welcome to the Blumhouse are all apparently fixated on institutionalized horror. The first two installments that have dropped (the other two films will premiere on October 9) are Bingo Hell and Black as Night, each tackling both a different strain of horror storytelling and a unique form of systemically ingrained injustice. A common trait across the pair of features, unfortunately, is a lack of consistently high-quality filmmaking. Here’s to hoping the next final two entries in this year’s collection wrap things up on a much stronger note.  Continue Reading →

The Addams Family characters have existed since 1938 and yet they’ve never felt as tired as they do in The Addams Family 2. A “kooky and spooky” family once known for subverting the norms is now the star of a movie that couldn’t be more ordinary. If you’ve seen one subpar computer-animated kids film from the last 15 years, you’ve probably seen all the worst bathroom and slapstick gags The Addams Family 2 has to offer. Here’s a feature that can’t be called a success unless it’s intended goal was to make one yearn for the sophistication of Hotel Transylvania 2. Continue Reading →

(This is part of our ongoing NYFF coverage.) Continue Reading →

When Anthony “Tony” Soprano first appears in Alan Taylor’s The Many Saints of Newark, he’s just a kid, hanging on the shoulder of his Uncle Richard “Dickie” Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola). Much like the show it precedes, Taylor’s crime drama focuses on family, a group of related and unrelated men and women influencing and subsequently controlling various parts of New Jersey. Billed as a Tony Soprano origin story, a prequel that wasn’t needed but wanted, the film never feels inherently necessary or emotional. It coasts upon characters it has already set up, actors with pedigree playing said characters, and the understanding that this David Chase-created world is still connected and worth our time. Continue Reading →

Writing about Doom Patrol Season 3 is a surprisingly tricky task. After all, how many times can one stress that its budget aesthetics are a distinct part of its charm? How many times can you praise its willful strangeness, its willingness to embrace the bizarre without ignoring the need for characterization? How many times can a critic declare, “yes, still very good.”? Continue Reading →

Contains spoilers about Netflix’s Midnight Mass (read our spoiler-free review here) Continue Reading →

To speak of No Time to Die is to speak of what came before it. Of course, that sounds obvious in theory; the Daniel Craig era of 007 comes to an end here. They lightly tied into each other until Spectre drunkenly tried and failed at deepening the mythology. While the quality of the films varied, at least they were all distinct. It's been fifteen years and five movies -- now it all comes to a head, the stakes ostensibly high and the emotions primed to be deeper. And yet, against all odds, Cary Joji Fukunaga's offering to the franchise is derivative enough of its most recent predecessors to fumble conceptually and concretely. Continue Reading →

T.J. Parsell's documentary about queer women and the country music they make gives its subjects and their work space to shine. (This review is part of our 2021 coverage of Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival) Bonnie Baker. Kye Fleming. Jess Leary. Mary Gauthier. Pam Rose. Mary Ann Kennedy. Dianne Davidson. Virginia Team. Ruthie Foster. Cidney Bullens. Chely Wright. Continue Reading →

Mia Hansen-Løve's latest wrestles with the creative and romantic frustrations between men and women, with Ingmar Bergman watching mindfully overhead. (This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 New York Film Festival.) It's an unwritten rule of film festivals that there have to be at least a few films in the program dealing with either the history of cinema or the filmmaking process. Bergman Island, the latest from Mia Hansen-Løve, covers both of those bases. It's a quietly beguiling look at a pair of filmmakers as they go about generating their latest projects, literally standing in the looming shadow of one of filmmaking's most towering figures.  Continue Reading →

A charming chronicle of Bebe Zahara Benet's life, undermined by its dodging heavier histories. (This review is part of our 2021 coverage of Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival.) “I want a nickname like Cameroon,” a young white gay squeals as he meets BeBe Zahara Benet. The drag queen, tv personality, and African beauty smiles kindly but doesn’t respond. While she may have won the first-ever season of RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2009, with RuPaul calling out “Camerooooooooooooon” at every runway entrance or any chance she felt like, BeBe has struggled to put herself and her home country of Cameroon on the map. Continue Reading →

In the opening scene of Benedetta, a young girl stops along the road to pray to a shrine of the Virgin Mary. A group of bandits ambushes her and her family, nobles who are well-off but by no means excessively affluent. Benedetta curses the thieves as they snatch her mother’s gold necklace, promising that the Holy Mother will haunt them for the rest of their days. Suddenly, a small bird flies from a nearby tree and shits in the eye of the bandit leader. The men laugh and toss the jewelry back to Benedetta’s mother, preferring not to risk it. Still, we’re left wondering – was this divine intervention? Or just a case of well-timed bird poop?   Continue Reading →

Foundation is big. It is glossy. It is grand in scale and epic in tone. Worlds upon worlds, filled with trillions of people, hang in the balance. Well-dressed futuristic figures in smartly-appointed rooms give high-minded speeches at one another, debating the fate of civilization as it unspools over millennia. Continue Reading →

The post-WWII boxing drama wastes Ben Foster and Vicky Krieps in an overfamiliar prestige drama that botches its handling of the Holocaust. For a one-time perennial Oscar-contending director, Barry Levinson has had one of the most curious careers of the 21st century. His recent work includes thrillers and comedies like Envy, The Bay, and Man of the Year. With Bill Murray vehicle Rock the Kasbah, Levinson seemed to have mildly scraped the zeitgeist once again. Now, with The Survivor he’s plunging back into the Oscar/prestige realm with The Survivor, a black-and-white Holocaust/ boxing drama. The Survivor is based on the life of Harry (original name Hertzko) Haft, a Jewish man who survived Auschwitz by boxing as a ringer for a Nazi commander. When this becomes public knowledge, Haft is derided as a traitor by New York’s Jewish community. In execution, The Survivor hews closely to the standard patterns of prestige drama, to the point that there is very little distinct or interesting about its craft. Continue Reading →

Tea Lindeberg and star Flora Ofelia Hoffman Lindhal craft a stupendous study of a young woman's struggle with her faith amidst horror. Perhaps the best film at TIFF was one of the first made available to audiences. A hidden gem from Denmark, Tea Lindeberg’s As in Heaven spins a stupendous picture from a quiet premise. The story of a young girl from a devout Christian farming family in Denmark set to break generations of tradition by going to school instead of shackling herself to her family’s land, As in Heaven is as wrenching as it is extraordinary. It’s a bleak picture to be sure, but it’s a powerful look at the ways religion and tradition starkly contrast with a slowly but surely changing world. Lise (Flora Ofelia Hoffman Lindhal) is an ethereal figure, bright and luminating with hope. That hope is quickly dashed by her father’s unhappiness – if not unwillingness – to send her to school. Moreover, Lise’s mother is about to have another child, growing their large family still further. Lise does housework and helps to entertain/wrangle her assorted younger siblings. She also has her eyes on a dashing tall young man who works on the farm named Jens Peter (Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt). As in Heaven’s genre-blending filmmaking offers a bleak, compelling, blood-soaked version of a Bergman-esque religious parable. Continue Reading →

(This review is part of our 2021 coverage of Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival./) Continue Reading →

Angelo Madsen Minax examines his family and their history with care, grace, and impeccable craft. (This review is part of our 2021 coverage of Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival) Loss is a twisting, winding thing. Director Angelo Madsen Minax sets out to trace and retrace the losses he and his family have experienced in his new documentary North by Current. It’s an elegiac and heart-rending meditation on the mechanisms of memory, the metaphysics of coping, and the melodrama of life. Continue Reading →