New York Film Festival 2024: Spotlight - Gala
It was in 1947 when English writer Malcolm Lowry’s acclaimed novel “Under the Volcano” was published. The book is about a British council named Geoffrey Firmin who resides in Quauhnahuac, Mexico, yet lives and breathes on the bottom of a bottle. He is slowly killing himself by drowning in alcohol. A bottle appears, and he becomes smaller in a constantly enlarging world. And on the day of the dead, his drunken ventures…
Cannes Film Festival 2024: In Competition
In David Cronenberg’s world, everything is tangible, from his plastic, carnal creations to his characters’ emotions deep inside their hearts, even when the narrative seems somewhat distant from reality. You can grasp everything in his mind the same way you have dreams and nightmares about David Lynch’s oeuvre. Cronenberg does many things with the body, but his films also haunt the mind and soul of the viewer – his career is divided into those…
Berlin International Film Festival 2025 (Berlinale 2025): Competition
When I finished watching Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World at the 2023 New York Film Festival, I immediately thought that Radu Jude was becoming a protegee of Jean-Luc Godard in his own right and manner. Jude, like Godard, is not shy about speaking his mind about whatever people ask him about or asking himself questions about modern society and its inhabitants. The frustrations of the pandemic…
Valentine’s Day may have passed already, but that does not mean love cannot still be in the air, and romantic flicks shouldn’t be at the cinema. First-time director Annabelle Mullen’s home-grown rom-com Arroba Amor (@amor) has hit Puerto Rican cinemas. Mullen explores dating in the modern, tech-reliant world, aging, and maternity, all seen through the eyes of an overworked film producer, Yulianna (Puerto Rican cinema “it girl” Marisé Álvarez), who takes a two-month vacation to Galicia, Spain to try and…
Although some of Not Okay’s provocative ideas don’t land, its witty script and Zoey Deutch’s piquant performance are engaging enough to make this a chaotic and fun ride.
Over the decades, plenty of films have mocked or ridiculed their own generation. However, as the years went by, more kept appearing. These films were ridiculing this modern generation addicted to the various social media platforms through different mediums and genres. Most of these features had exciting ideas, but they ended up…
TIFF 2021
Like Jackie, Spencer skillfully crafts horror & beauty within the isolation of its main character (almost like a ghost story in the midst of a fairytale). It is beautifully crafted on all ends. The strings by Greenwood. The cinematography by Mathon. Larrain's directionz And, in the heart of it, there is the brilliant Kristen Stewart with the performance of her career. Jackie tackles the mourning, while Spencer deals with mental health. Both Jackie and Diana act for the people…
