NYFF 63: "Dry Leaf" is the dawn of the low-res epic poem

by Cláudio Alves

Alexandre Koberidze shot the most beautiful film of the year on a 2008 Sony Ericsson. That may sound like a hopelessly provocative hot take, the sort of dishonest hyperbole one flourishes in hopes of garnering attention, gasps of shock, mayhap the reputation of an iconoclast walking to the beat of their own drum. And yet, I come to you with utmost sincerity to say that Dry Leaf is beautiful indeed, the sort of film whose splendor makes me reconsider how I approach the art form itself and my own pre-conceived notions of what constitutes a valuable cinematic image. At a time when 4K restorations are all the rage, and large formats are back in style to the point of fetishistic fervor, the Georgian director best known for What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? has gone in the opposite direction and created a three-hour 240p masterpiece…

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Review: P.T. Anderson's Glorious "One Battle After Another"

by Eric Blume

If you’re a regular site reader, you’ve probably been following all the film blogs discussing the new Paul Thomas Anderson epic, One Battle After Another.  So we don’t need to discuss plot or beat around the bush…the question is:  Does it really deliver like everyone has been saying? I remember being so excited before seeing Licorice Pizza -- it too was heralded by early viewers -- only to find it contrived and uninvolving in the cinema. My vote, this time, is an unqualified yes!  PTA is a great filmmaker:  ideologically ambitious, profoundly humanistic, and daringly assured technically.  Anderson delivers with depth and panache here in this new contemporary, highly political film... 

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NYFF 63: "Peter Hujar's Day" ponders portraiture

by Cláudio Alves

The subject of many recent retrospectives, republishing projects, biographical and speculative analyses, Peter Hujar was among the queer creatives who, in the second half of the 20th century, helped define what we understand as the New York art scene. A portrait photographer, his oeuvre can be considered in dialogue with that of Mapplethorpe and Wojnarowicz, among others. And like those men, he died young, a victim of the AIDS crisis. Almost thirteen years before that end, Hujar sat down with his friend, Linda Rosenkrantz, and recalled the previous day in detail, allowing himself to be recorded for a work she was developing. Her book was never realized, but in 2019, a typewritten record of Hujar's testimony showed up in the Morgan Library archives.

Director Ira Sachs read the published transcripts while filming Passages, getting the idea to dramatize the material. The result is Peter Hujar's Day, a conversation piece where Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall breathe life into what remains of that long afternoon shared between two portraitists…

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Artist Tribute: Regina Hall in the Scary Movie Franchise

by Nick Taylor

We are ringing in the opening weekend for Paul Thomas Anderson’s new American epic One Battle After Another by celebrating a legend. While early reviews suggest an impressive performance likely to be overshadowed by the bigger challenges of her co-stars, I’m simply excited to see her kill it again on the big screen. Anything for this actress to keep building the goodwill necessary to one day swan across Oscar’s stage and receive the adulation she obviously deserves. I am, of course, talking about Regina Hall, one of the funniest people working in the pictures. With this year being the 25th anniversary of the very first Scary Movie (yes I know it was released in July, hush), we take this day to honor Hall’s superlative turns as Brenda Meeks across the first four films in the franchise . . . 

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TIFF 50: A star is born in "The Little Sister"

by Cláudio Alves

Like The Sun Rises on Us All in Venice, The Little Sister suffered quite a bit of backlash after its lead actress won Cannes' highest honor. And like Xin Zhilei, Nadia Melliti is an eminently deserving victor, unfairly maligned by the online badmouthing and stan nonsense that reached a boiling point as Jennifer Lawrence left the Croisette empty-handed. Indeed, hers is one of the year's most captivating performances, a complex and tender portrait that feels all the more special when one remembers this was Melliti's debut. As she did in previous efforts behind the camera, Hafsia Herzi has proven herself prodigious at directing actors, turning The Little Sister into a must-watch for anyone who values such artistry and the wonders of character-based drama…

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