Review: Reichardt takes on the heist movie in "The Mastermind"

by Cláudio Alves

Many of contemporary cinema's most celebrated auteurs have recently chosen to exercise their comedic muscles. Park Chan-wook leans on farcicalness and cartoon-like mugging as he's never done before in No Other Choice, while even something as palpably angry as Jafar Panahi's It Was Just An Accident often moves in the way of screwball escalation. One Battle After Another is as harrowing as it is hilarious, and the same could be said of The Secret Agent. Down in the arthouse weeds, we can find Guiraudie and Kurosawa probing the limits of absurdity. Marco Berger lovingly contemplates the romcom while, in the mainstream, Celine Song tries to subvert it. Pálmason is off in his own world, somehow turning child maiming into comedy gold in The Love That Remains. 

Which leads us to The Mastermind, Kelly Reichardt's take on a heist movie, starring the ever-fumbling and disheveled Josh O'Connor performing another rendition of the pathetic loser blues he's been perfecting for the best part of the last decade. Hardly a laugh riot in the traditional sense, I'd still call it one of 2025's funniest flicks…

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Review: "Riefenstahl" confronts a singular, disgraceful director

by Nick Taylor

We will never escape the discourse of whether it is possible to separate an artwork from the artist who created it. Death of the author, authorial intent, auteur theory vs collaboration, wider social contexts in which a work exists, so on and so forth. I state this as a fact above all else. We do love interviews and essays where someone talks about how they funnelled their passions and lived experiences into something magnificent. Frankly, I find it annoying only insofar as it feels like we’re asked to do this when someone’s got something very shitty going on offscreen, but even at its best, conflate an artist with their entire past can be a simple shortcut to dogpiling an object rather than meaningfully engaging with it. 

Which brings us to Leni Riefenstahl, a hideously controversial and influential director forever famous as the woman behind Nazi propaganda films Triumph of the Will and Olympia. She’s also the subject of Andres Veiel’s documentary Riefenstahl, which premiered to great acclaim at last year’s Venice Film Festival and is waiting for you to rent it right now . . . .

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TIFF 50: To be or not to be, with "Hamlet" and "Scarlet"

by Cláudio Alves

You thought you were free of TIFF coverage? Well, think again, because there are still a lot of movies to discuss, even if already intertwined with NYFF reviews. In any case, let's consider Shakespeate and a certain prince of Denmark.

There lived and died a Hamnet before Hamlet came to be on the page, on the stage, and in the imagination of countless folks stretching from the Elizabethan age into eternity. At TIFF 50, however, Aneil Karia's Hamlet screened before Zhao's Hamnet, a bit overshadowed by the film that had already rocked Telluride by that point and still promises to be a talking point for months to come. The same could be said for Scarlet, Mamoru Hosoda's latest animated fantasy, which takes its cues from the Bard's tragedy for one wild ride into purgatory and beyond…

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NYFF63: Lucio Castro brings sexy back again and again with "Drunken Noodles"

by Nick Taylor

He’s done it again, folks. Lucio Castro, the writer/director/editor behind 2019’s metaphysical tryst End of the Century, is continuing his hot streak with his latest release, entitled Drunken Noodles. The film debuted at this year’s Cannes ACID sidebar and has been casually cruising its way through the festival circuit before an unspecified US release date next year. If it comes to your town, haul ass and see it. If you can’t yet, may this review sate your appetite until it comes your way . . . .

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Screening Season in Los Angeles - 10 Capsules

by Eurocheese

It’s that time of year! Los Angeles screening season is in full gear, with Oscar hopefuls sending out invites right and left. Here are my comments and rankings (by preference order)on the last batch of 10 films (!) with more to come soon.

One Battle After Another – A+. Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliance can be hit and miss, but this is among his very best works. DiCaprio capitalizes on the comedic energy he’s brought to Tarantino films, bringing frenetic energy to this sprawling, action-packed epic. Teyana Taylor’s popping introduction, newcomer Chase Infiniti’s grounding steady hand and an insanely madcap villain from Sean Penn are all nomination-worthy, with even the smaller parts for Benicio del Toro and Regina Hall packing a punch. The must-see of the season...

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