Berlinale Dispatch: “Matt and Mara,” “Janet Planet,” “La Cocina”

For this batch of capsule reviews from the 74th Berlinale, I’m covering two relationship comedies (Kazik Radwanski’s Matt and Mara and Annie Baker’s Janet Planet) and Alonso Ruizpalacios’ epic about the American dream as contained within a busy Manhattan kitchen, La Cocina. Read my reviews of those films below. LA COCINA The American dream is […]

Berlinale Review: “A Traveler’s Needs”

Travel is a funny thing: the sense of displacement rubbing up against the excitement of being in a new place and meeting new people. As a frequent rover, it’s something that I experience a lot: existing in constant limbo, feeling alive while feeling like I can’t have a life at all. Perhaps those thoughts are […]

Berlinale Dispatch: “Dahomey,” “My Stolen Planet,” “Hands in the Fire”

For this dispatch from the 74th Berlinale, I’m looking at three films (coincidentally all directed by women) that merge history and filmmaking. Mati Diop’s magnificent Dahomey and Iranian filmmaker Farahnaz Sharifi’s My Stolen Planet both operate in the nonfiction sphere, while Portuguese director Margarida Gil’s Hands in the Fire is a loose adaptation of Henry […]

Berlinale Review: “Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger”

If you know movies, you probably know Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger— if not by name, than by the indelible images they created in their films. The infinite staircase connecting earth with the afterlife in A Matter of Life and Death; the vibrant reds in the ballet at the center of The Red Shoes; the […]

Berlinale Review: “Henry Fonda for President”

He’s tall and thin, and speaks in a tone and cadence that I can only describe as regular— neither too booming, nor too quiet. He can employ these traits in a couple of different directions: for comedy, tripping over his lanky frame, awkward and stuttering (especially when around women— think of his brush-ups with a […]

Berlinale Review: “Hors du temps” (“Suspended Time”)

A rush of excitement, followed by a wince— that’s what I experienced when I first heard that French director Olivier Assayas (the illustrious filmmaker behind such contemporary classics as Irma Vep, Clouds of Sils Maria, and Personal Shopper) would be premiering a new film at this year’s Berlinale. And then I learned the plot: a […]

Berlinale Review: “Cuckoo”

It looks like something out of a postcard: the enchanting, almost retro style of a resort lobby, the Bavarian Alps behind it painting the horizon with their snowy majesty. Nothing about this picturesque scene would suggest the insanity and terror that’s to come— nothing, except perhaps for Mr. König (Dan Stevens), the lodge’s proprietor, whose […]

Berlinale Review: “Small Things Like These”

It’s probably too pat to say so, but it really is about the small things: the tiniest occurrences that can trigger a memory that can in turn prompt emotions normally kept tucked down deep inside to roil to the surface. Irish writer Claire Keegan’s short story Foster was adapted into a wrenching film directed by […]

Review: “The Taste of Things”

If cooking is one of the most romantic things you can do for another person, then surely Trần Anh Hùng’s The Taste of Things is the most sumptuous instance of that action being committed to film. Immediately, Hùng immerses the viewer in the act, not just the preparing and serving of food, but taking us […]

Review: “Argylle”

“This was our song,” a man murmurs to a woman as they tenderly sway to the music across the dance floor. The song in question is “Now and Then,” a “new” song by the “Beatles” that was released in November 2023— nearly two years after principal photography wrapped on Matthew Vaughn’s Argylle. The song, in […]