Cannes: "Hope" is Korea's Biggest Swing Yet Toward the Box Office Canon

by Elisa Giudici

There’s something genuinely startling about seeing the sprawling sci-fi epic Hope in Competition at Cannes. Not because genre films are unwelcome on the Croisette anymore; that battle has largely been wo. The surprise is that Na Hong-jin’s film embraces blockbuster language so wholeheartedly. This is not elevated horror masquerading as arthouse cinema, nor a restrained science-fiction allegory carefully calibrated for festival audiences. Hope is loud, enormous, messy, violent, and frequently exhilarating entertainment. It's a film with giant creatures, extended chase sequences, exploding buildings, machine guns, and a level of visual maximalism that feels almost aggressively unconcerned with prestige filmmaking etiquette...

Click to read more ...

Cannes: With "Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma" Jane Schoenbrun doubles down on becoming a defining generational voice.

by Elisa Giudici

TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA. MUBI

By the time Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma premiered at Cannes, Jane Schoenbrun had already become something close to a generational folk hero for younger cinephiles. You could feel it inside the Debussy theater before the lights even went down: critics squeezed onto theater steps, festival attendees treating an Un Certain Regard opener like the hottest ticket on the Croisette, audiences buzzing less about Cannes prestige than about what the filmmaker behind I Saw the TV Glow might do next. And honestly, the excitement makes sense. Few filmmakers right now understand how media obsession functions emotionally for millennials and Gen Z quite like Schoenbrun does. Their work isn’t simply nostalgic. It treats pop culture, horror movies, forgotten VHS relics, fandom rituals, and half-ironic internet cinephilia as part of the architecture of identity itself...

Click to read more ...

Cannes: Four opening films, ranked.

by Elisa Giudici

IN WAVES

With Cannes now in full swing, let's rank the four opening titles from Un Certain Regard, Director's Fortnight, Critics Week, and Out of Competition.

4. In Waves by Phuong Mai Nguyen (France/Belgium) [Opening Film of Critics’ Week]
In Waves is probably the most polished and emotionally accessible of the festival's four openers, which, for my taste, also makes it the least exciting. The film follows AJ, a shy teenager obsessed with sketching and skating, whose world gradually expands after he becomes close to Kristen, the older sister of his best friend. Through her, AJ discovers surfing, which the film treats less as a sport than as a way of existing inside the world: a physical and emotional state where identity briefly feels stable, harmonious, almost suspended outside ordinary life...

Click to read more ...

Review: The Incredible "Blue Heron" Devastates at a Distance

By Ben Miller

Creating distance and disorienting your audience is usually not what a filmmaker strives for, especially in their feature-length debut. Luckily, director Sophy Romvari is able to utilize her own fractured memories to tell a deeply personal story in her devastatingly exceptional debut Blue Heron, now playing in limited release.

In our current entertainment landscape, plot points need to be reiterated, all needs to be revealed, and catharsis must be achieved. Romvari has no intention of giving you any of those answers, because she doesn't have the answers herself. She is looking back on her own experience without the benefit of understanding, because some things aren’t possible to fully comprehend...

Click to read more ...

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.

Click to read more ...