Review: You're Gonna Love "Michael" Despite What I Say About It

By Ben Miller

As I left my screening of Antoine Fuqua's Michael, I heard a woman exclaim, "That was exactly what I wanted!" This is the overall goal of this film. You will learn absolutely nothing about Michael Jackson the man, but you will get every hit song with loud and vibrant performances.

Frankly, Michael is critic-proof. No matter how much I go on about my multitude of problems, you just won't care. It looks like Michael Jackson on screen, using his actual music, inspired by his performances, and completely glosses over any issues that might make anyone uncomfortable. It's the most kid-gloves film I can remember seeing in some time. No chances are taken, nothing is learned... and it's going to make a lot of money.

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Review: "The Drama" is a Nightmare to Watch and Even Worse to Describe

By Ben Miller

I won't lie and say you will absolutely enjoy Kristoffer Borgli's The Drama. In fact, there's a pretty good chance you will either hate it, or feel repulsed having watched it. This film lives in an uncomfortable and awkward world of anxiety which will turn many viewers off.

This film exists in an impossible world to market a film. You can't delve too much into the guts of the story without revealing the main conflict. You also can't spoil the parts of the film that come from that, because it just comes across as confusing. What you get is this vague picture of what the film might be about. The reality is: what if Tim Robinson tried to make a romantic drama, but secretly wanted to make a comedy? That's about what you can expect from The Drama...

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Berlinale: With "Wolfram" Warwick Thornton finally strikes gold

by Elisa Giudici

For a filmmaker long associated with the Australian western, Warwick Thornton has often seemed trapped inside his own obsessions. Film after film has returned to the same harsh landscapes, the same colonial fault lines, the same story of Aboriginal endurance under white domination — sometimes with conviction, often with diminishing returns. With Wolfram, however, something finally coheres. After several disappointments, Thornton delivers his strongest work in years, perhaps decades: a film that feels less like repetition and more like arrival.

The title refers to tungsten, mined with pickaxes, dynamite, and small hands nimble enough to pry metal from rock. Those hands belong to Max and Kid, two Aboriginal kids forced to labor underground for Billy, a white man who oscillates between surrogate father and exploiter...

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Berlinale's would-be scandal "Rosebush Pruning"

by Elisa Giuidici

Incest, murder, and the airless cynicism of extreme wealth: Rosebush Pruning positions itself aggressively as this year’s Berlinale provocation. Very loosely inspired by Marco Bellocchio’s 1965 debut Fists in the Pocket, Karim Aïnouz’s English-language drama borrows the earlier film’s diseased family structure but transplants it into the sterile rarefaction of contemporary ultra-wealthy excess.

Bellocchio’s earlier Italian classic centered on a wealthy young epileptic plotting to eliminate his blind mother and siblings to “free” his older brother from domestic obligation. Aïnouz retains the architecture of that premise while shifting the social register upward. Here the patriarch is a blind, theatrically transgressive father (Tracy Letts), alternately possessive and imperious, presiding over four adult children (Riley Keough, Jamie Bell, Callum Turner, and Lukas Gage) already enriched by their late mother’s estate. Pamela Anderson’s absent matriarch - killed by wolves - haunts the film from its opening frames...

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Sundance 2026: Rinko Kikuchi plays a dancing widow in “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!”

by Cláudio Alves

Two weeks ago, the 2026 Sundance Film Festival came to a close, marking its first edition after founder Robert Redford’s death and the last time it was held in Park City. Next year, the festivities will take place in Boulder, Colorado, the start of a new chapter in its history. For me, it was also a first, as, after years of trying, I finally got press credentials to cover Sundance online – fifth time’s the charm. Sadly, the limited number of days of the online program meant I had little time to post anything during the fest itself. And then came the storms, a weather calamity that’s ravaged Portugal and has left me various days without power and only intermittent wi-fi. 

My apologies that it took so long for this coverage to kickstart, but better late than never. And to get things going in style, let’s look at one of the films Nathaniel has already spotlighted in the “We Can’t Wait” series, about his most-anticipated 2026 releases – Ha Chan, Shake Your Booty!…

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