Michelle in Makeup

Posterized: Zhang Yimou returns with his best film in many years

by Nathaniel R

One of Asia's finest auteurs, Zhang Yimou, returns to arthouse theaters today with his new film Shadow, which is a true return to form for a director whose use of color in movies has few contemporary equals. The new films is shot in color but the costumes and sets are black and white making for numerous startling images. The 69 year old Chinese director's films have been up for multiple BAFTAs, Globes, and Oscars over the years and he also co-directed the very famous Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics so you might not even realize how familiar you are with his work. 

How many of his movies have you seen? Here are the posters for all 21 of his narrative features with some awards trivia, too...

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The Winners of Tribeca 2019

Murtada, Jason and I have all been attending Tribeca screenings (more reviews to come) but as per usual the winners mostly somehow escaped us. But here they are.

U.S. NARRATIVE COMPETITION
The jury members were: Lucy Alibar, Jonathan Ames, Cory Hardrict, Dana Harris, and Jenny Lumet. 

Wendell Pierce as a troubled Louisiana preacher in "Burning Cane" 

Feature: Burning Cane, directed by Phillip Youmans. which the jury calls "searingly original". Director Phillip Youman is just 19 years old and started making this movie two years ago in high school (!!!!!!!!) and also makes history as the first black man to win Tribeca!
Actress: Haley Bennett in Swallow who the jury calls "sensitive and engaging" (Special mention: Geetanjali Thapa in Stray Dolls). Our review here. 
Actor: – Wendell Pierce in Burning Cane...

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Tribeca 2019: "Swallow"

Here's Jason Adams reporting from Tribeca once again...

I will only ever experience childbirth from the one side, and you know what? I'm good with that. All due credit to the mothers out there who manage to keep the world populated -- including my own, who was in labor with me for ten hours [shudder] -- but I'm thrown into a tizzy if I stub my toe. Some of the horror stories I've heard from female friends about the experience have turned my all of my reproductive organs into ash. 

I over-share all of this because this has always made me a prime sucker for pregnancy horror films. Rosemary's Baby, as I've covered here before, is my favorite film of all time. And we just got a doozy of a new take on this sub-genre with Swallow, writer-director Carlo Mirabella-Davis' fantastic new film starring a riveting Haley Bennett as an expectant mother whose isolation and surprise hesitancy spirals her down an unexpected path...

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Review: Long Shot

by Chris Feil

The year ahead of any presidential election always comes with a middling political satire stumbling toward zeitgeist. Remember Swing Vote? Probably not.

This preamble year’s attempt, Jonathan Levine’s Long Shot, also blends that recurring genre with one that feels as periodically common these days - it’s also romantic comedy. Here Charlize Theron plays Charlotte Field, Secretary of State to an incompetent but popular president not seeking a second term, with her chances at launching a presidential run hingeing on the success of her new global green initiative. Her romantic foil comes with Seth Rogen’s Fred Flarsky, a journalist brought aboard as Charlotte’s speechwriter to help boost her approval ratings.

But it’s not just Fred’s witty journalistic approach that helps Charlotte reveal her authenticity to the masses, it’s the boyish crush he’s had for her since she was his teenage babysitter. To the film’s credit, it’s much sweeter (and a lot less creepy) than it sounds.

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