Best International Film: Mexico's "Prayers for the Stolen"

by Cláudio Alves

I don't usually take notes while watching films. However, after a screening ends, I might run to my notebook or laptop to jot down some detail, the description of an incredible image I want to preserve in my memory. It's especially true when I know I'm reviewing said film later on, as was the case with Tatiana Huezo's narrative feature debut, Prayers for the Stolen or Noche de Fuego. This time, though, I didn't just have a couple of stray compositions that had left an impression. Indeed, I wrote down a review's worth of small observations, fleeting images that captured the imagination, portentous symbolism that enchanted through its menace, sounds echoing in my head long after the credits rolled. Such is Huezo's ability to draw poetry from harsh realism

Watching Mexico's Oscar submission is to be immersed in a cinematic world of dangerous beauty, a sinister corner of the country, rural and ruthless. In the right circumstances, the vast landscapes of mountains and poppy fields might have looked pastoral, but there's far too much menace in the air for it to register...

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Red Notice: just enough to press play

by Elisa Giudici

As early as the prologue, Red Notice sets the bar so low that you instantly know to shut up and meekly accept every absurd thing it gives you. When an adventure movie starts with Marcus Antonius gifting his future bride Queen Cleopatra with 3 Fabergé jeweled eggs around 1000 years before Gustav Fabergé himself came to the world, you know realism is not high on the list of the movie's priorities. Not a priority at all, whether in the past or the present. Five minutes later we are introduced to Dwayne Johnson's FBI criminal profiler John Hartley. Sporting a black turtleneck (and later a silk patterned scarf), the notion of The Rock being a criminal profiler is so improbable that the screenplay mounts a preemptive defense. "You don't look like one".

"I get that a lot" replies The Rock, introducing us to a parallel world in which a lot of characters are nonsensical in service of an action-comedy about art thieves and double plays.  This is the kind of movie in which the audience will likely forgive anything, provided they are offered some spectacle, a few good liners, and chemistry between glamorous supertstars. Unfortunately, Red Notice lacks almost any of these elements...

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AFI World Premiere: Halle Berry's "Bruised"

by Eurocheese

Bruised gives us Halle Berry behind and in front of the camera, telling the story of a former MMA fighter who has been down on her luck for some time. When her life is complicated by the return of her son, she is forced to get her priorities in order and address the demons of her past. Berry spoke about revamping the script – originally written with a young white protagonist in mind – to reflect her own vision with the writer’s assistance, and it’s clear this was a passion project for her.

Does that passion translate to the screen? Yes, but this can be both a curse and a blessing...

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Streaming: "The Harder They Fall"

Please welcome guest contributor Jasmine Graham

Westerns are not a genre I’m a massive fan of so I had no idea what to expect from The Harder They Fall, a directorial debut from Jeymes Samuels, a singer-songwriter from England. The film, now streaming on Netflix, follows Nat Love (Jonathan Majors) spending the course of the film avenging his parents death as a child to Rufus Buck (Idris Elba) and his gang. Joining them in the ensemble cast are Edi Gathegi, Regina King, and Zazie Beetz to name a few. The cast is exceptional, with wonderful chemistry and such good performances that it’s hard to name one standout. The film is a western, through and through, with bloody and violent shootouts that do not disappoint...

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Passing: Finding the Grey between Black and White

by Patrick Ball

In Rebecca Hall’s devastatingly delicate Passing, light plays a powerful role. One I haven't seen in many films before. The use and placement of natural and artificial light introduces and reintroduces us to the characters over and over. Depending on how the situation suits them, they bask in it, hide from it, are able to play up their ruses, daring us to look a little closer, or cling to shadows, to the safety of the shade. 

As many of us in America came to a new and widened understanding of the foundational race issues in our country following the deaths of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor last year, and the resulting national reckoning that came after, I spent a lot of time considering how my experience as an “ethnically ambiguous” mixed-race black person has shaped my perception of race, and of media. In Passing, Tessa Thompson’s Irene wryly remarks to a white acquaintance that “we all are passing for something or another, aren’t we?” And isn’t that at the heart of the imposter syndrome we all feel at a new job or opportunity, the shades of ourselves we put on in social gatherings, the walls we build to hide our flaws and insecurities? There is something universal in the facade...

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