Venice 2026: “No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman”

At the end of writer and director Halkawt Mustafa’s propulsive war thriller No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman, Vyan (Avan Jamal), the Kurdish sniper whose harrowing journey to save her sister forms the backbone of the film, states that “Only when we face death do we understand the value of life.” It’s […]

Venice 2026: “Diane in the Loop”

Harnessing the traditionally masculine language of westerns and applying it to a fierce and funny tale of feminine rage and reckoning, writer/director duo Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni’s third feature Diane in the Loop opens with an image that feels immediately iconic: the back of their protagonist, Diane’s (Ninon Borsei), head as she dons a […]

Venice 2026: “House of the Wind”

“You know, children bring a house to life.” Josette (Josette Kwanya) utters those words to her son Benoît on one of their many Zoom calls, the only method by which she ever sees or speaks to her adult children, who long since left their native Cameroon in search of better opportunities in Western countries. House […]

Review: “Boorman and the Devil”

Toward the end of Boorman and the Devil— David Kittredge’s impressively thorough and candid documentary about the legendarily troubled production of Exorcist II: The Heretic— the director speaks briefly to Jeff Kanew. Kanew is primarily remembered today for directing 80s comedies like Revenge of the Nerds and Troop Beverly Hills, but in the mid-1970s, he […]

Review: “The End of Oak Street”

It isn’t far into its runtime before the double meaning in the title of David Robert Mitchell’s rather unclassifiable throwback blockbuster The End of Oak Street becomes clear. The first alludes to the film’s literal location, a cul-de-sac at the back of a neighborhood called Flowervale, circa 1982. Our first glimpse of it is one […]

Review: “One Night Only”

As One Night Only, Will Gluck’s portrait of a dystopian hellscape masquerading as a frothy rom-com, approaches its third act, a potential love interest for Monica Barbaro’s Allie caps a whimsically-delivered monologue about how a government mandate forbidding pre-marital sex outside of an annual 12 hour time frame actually makes the act more special and […]

Review: “The Currents”

At first glance, Lina (Isabel Aimé González Sola) appears to have it all. A comfortable life with her husband Pedro (Esteban Bigliardi) and daughter Sofia (Emma Fayo Duarte) in Argentina. A successful career as a fashion designer. So successful, in fact, that she travels to Switzerland to accept an award for her work. The opening […]

Review: “The Odyssey” (2026)

I glided off of Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey in much the same way I do Denis Villeneuve’s Dune movies, the mass appeal of which I decided long ago I will never comprehend. I sincerely believe you can make a serious-minded epic without requiring every cast member to deliver broodingly one-note […]

KVIFF 2026: “Robert Richardson: The White Devil,” “The Hanging of Stuart Cornfeld”

I generally enter biographical documentaries— especially ones centered on Hollywood figures— with arms crossed and an eyebrow raised, but I thought both of the industry docs I watched at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival this week, programmed as part of the festival’s Special Screenings sections— Robert Richardson: The White Devil (the thrice Academy Award-winning […]

KVIFF 2026: “The Guest,” “Lover, Not a Fighter,” “Incinerator”

This year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival concluded with numerous worthy films being awarded, from directing honors for the cringe-inducing family drama The Guest in the Crystal Globe Competition, to recognition for two very different coming-of-age stories in the festival’s Proxima competition: the appealing comedy Lover, Not a Fighter and the mysterious and mesmeric Incinerator. […]