Review: Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle
A couple of weeks before I saw this film, I read filmmaker Werner Herzog’s first novel "The Twilight World,” which draws on his meeting 25 years ago with Hiroo Onoda,…
Review: Decision to Leave
This Korean romantic thriller from Park Chan-wook (Handmaiden, Snowpiercer) begins with the classic set-up. Weary detective Hae-joon (Park Hae-il ) arrives at a crime scene. A man is dead. But…
Review: The Good Boss
Javier Bardem is one of my favorite actors. I would pay to watch him read a phone book. (Do they still make those?) He is definitely one of the most…
Review: Happening
Talk about a film arriving at just the right moment! This gripping French drama about a young woman in the early 1960s who gets pregnant and has to go through…
Review: Hit the Road
This wonderful road trip drama traverses the Iranian landscape with a family and their dog. Along for the ride are a mother (Pantea Panahiha) and father (Hasan Majuni) and their…
Review: Wood and Water
Not a lot "happens" in this character study film, but that doesn't mean it's boring. It's the story of Anke (played by Anke Bak, the director’s mother), a German woman…
Review: Huda’s Salon
This riveting “based on true events” thriller from two-time Academy Award nominee Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now, Omar) is set in the West Bank. Reem (Maisa Abd Elhadi) is a young Palestinian…
Review: Fabian
In this adaptation of "Fabian: Going to the Dogs", a German novel first published in 1931 but later banned and burned by the National Socialist Party, Jakob Fabian (Tom Schilling)…
Review: Drive My Car
Adapted from a short story by Haruki Murikami, one of my favorite authors, Drive My Car is a haunting drama about love and grief and reckoning. It centers on two…
Review: The Hand of God
This coming of age drama from Academy Award-winning writer/director Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty) tells the story of Fabietto (Filippo Scotti). Set in Naples in the 1980s, it's clearly a…
Review: Speer Goes to Hollywood
This documentary which won the Israeli equivalent of the Oscar is one of those unknown but true stories that was begging to be told. Following the publication of his bestselling…
Review: Lamb
Strange doesn't even come close to describing this folk horror flick. Set in a remote valley somewhere in Iceland, Maria (Noomi Rapace, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Prometheus) and…
Adaptation
Arty Chick
Based on True Story
Biopic
Comedy
Documentary
Drama
Female led films
Foreign
Indie
LGBTQ
Musical
Romance
Science Fiction/Fantasy
Thriller
Nashville Film Festival Rundown
This was my first time (virtually) attending the Nashville Film Festival. It is close enough for me to drive over, but that was not possible this time around. They had a…
Review: Wife of a Spy
This stylish thriller from director Kiyoshi Kurosawa is set in Japan in 1940 shortly before they entered World War II. It opens with beautiful young couple making an amateur movie…
Review: Azor
This claustrophobic drama is set in Argentina in the late 1970s, just after a military junta has taken over the country and the moneyed elite are trying to pretend that…