Film Reviews
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The Forbidden Room (Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson)
While slightly overlong, this surreal montage film synthesizes a broad range of silent and sound artifacts in rapturous, volcanic eruptions of pure cinematic curio.
Grant Phipps enters... -
Knight of Cups (Terrence Malick)
In the latest film in Malick's late-career period of prolificacy, the director turns his attention to Hollywood.
Brad Hanford reviews... -
Anomalisa (Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson)
An underwhelming narrative entangled in the mild humor of hackneyed mid-life crisis, the stop-motion film proves Kaufman's gifts are more suited to immense theatrical sandbox than domestic and office miniatures.
Grant Phipps knows an... -
Cemetery of Splendour (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
A culmination of the drolly understated poetic surrealism that brought the director international acclaim, the film's warm humanity and densely suggestive imagery collectively influence and deconstruct Thailand's troubled history.
Grant Phipps embraces the rapturous big sleep... -
Respire (Mélanie Laurent)
The alternately sensitive and blistering coming-of-age thriller's tumultuous core relationship ultimately collapses into a climax of cold contrivance.
Grant Phipps' breath was not taken away by... -
Violet (Bas Devos)
Inexorably led by sensation rather than lucid story structure, this ambiguous coming-of-age study marries the longs takes of Béla Tarr with subject matter oft-sought by Gus Van Sant.
Grant Phipps gazes into the mourning haze of... -
Spring (Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead)
Aspiring to reach Linklater's signature emotional earnestness, this genre amalgamation of romance, science fiction, and black comedy fails to reconcile its disparate tones.
Grant Phipps is unseasonably cool on... -
Love and Mercy (Bill Pohlad)
At its best, the nonlinear film lures its audiences into a dreamlike rhythm that synchronizes with Brian Wilson's soulfully innovative approach to music.
Grant Phipps guesses he just wasn't made for these times... -
The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland)
Like a lost chapter of seductive '70s cinema, the elliptical all-female fantasy uniquely and entrancingly explores BDSM through lepidoptery.
Grant Phipps heeds the call. Pinastri... -
Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev)
Both biblical and modern in scope, Zvyagintsev's epic film indicts the corrupt intertwined power structures of the Russian Orthodox Church and State with pointed finality.
Grant Phipps pulls it in with a fishhook...
