CBS
The promotional copy for "Bodyguard of Lies" ahead of its Tribeca screening said that Dan Krauss's documentary "rips the veil off one of the most costly and controversial chapters in recent American history: the war in Afghanistan." How many people are still behind a veil of ignorance at this point about the Afghan War as a piece of U.S. foreign policy is a question. You might also note the spotting of the word "recent," since as the documentary itself points out the legacy of the Vietnam War lurks in plain sight and not all that far in the past. Neither equivocal nor designed to be, the film puts on-camera statements and speeches from U.S. politicians and military leaders during the war next to material from the later "Afghan War Lessons Learned" interviews, a set of recorded debriefings loosely instigated by Congress and which formed the basis of a Washington Post exposé in 2019. The Post is among the producer credits here, making this doc an adjunct to its existing reporting on the topic. It hardly needs saying that the public statements and the private testimonies are from different planets.
Continue reading "Infinity War" »
Universal Pictures
How to Train Your Dragon (2025)
Since Disney is resolved to mine and recycle all its animated I.P. into live action, DreamWorks is also joining in on the act – or at least that’s the logical conclusion that redditors on the r/DreamWorks sub are already drawing. The studio is so gung ho about the odds for the “How to Train Your Dragon” live-action remake that a sequel is already in the pipeline for 2027.
Continue reading "The Way of the Dragon" »
A24
Spoiler alert: Celine Song always chooses the white dude.
In “Materialists,” the follow-up to her much-lauded debut, “Past Lives,” Ms. Song once again finds her heroine – this time Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a professional Millionaire Matchmaker – amid a love triangle. At her clients’ wedding reception, she spots her next most eligible bachelor, Harry Castillo (Pedro Pascal). Thing is, he is more interested in her than being her customer.
Continue reading "White Knight" »
Courtesy photo
"Nothing here but history," sang those astute cultural archeologists Steely Dan in "The Caves of Altamira," as the song's protagonist went looking for ancient figures on the wall of an underground cavern. Altamira and a few other famous prehistoric sites crop up in Robert Macfarlane's 2019 nonfiction book "Underland," which takes a bracingly broad and poetic approach to what lies below the surface of the Earth and finds that history is only the start of it. "Into the underland we have long placed that which we fear and wish to lose, and that which we love and wish to save," writes the author, invoking the mystical element that hangs over both his book and the documentary now made from it by Mr. Macfarlane and director Robert Petit, with the involvement of Darren Aronofsky as an executive producer. Venture below the surface of the world and things usually separate come close together: science and magic, past and future, oxygen and poison, plus the members of a documentary crew squeezed into alarmingly tight spaces.
Continue reading "Let There Be Rock" »
Courtesy photo
Joachim Trier’s Cannes competition title “Sentimental Value” often feels like an attempt to recapture the success of his Oscar-nominated 2021 film, “The Worst Person in the World.” Not only do we have Renate Reinsve in the lead again, he also frames her with a medium shot right in the center of the screen all the damn time. This is so pronounced that one might actually overlook some of his progression in terms of visual composition.
Continue reading "Daddy Issues" »
Festival de Cannes
It Was Just an Accident (2025)
By the time its Cannes Film Festival world premiere was over, it was clear Jafar Panahi’s “It Was Just an Accident” had emerged as the frontrunner for Palme d’or four days before the closing ceremony. Its reception distinctly set it apart from worthy competition in an overall strong slate. It’s a triumphal return of sorts, his first drama since 2010 when Iran barred him from filmmaking and traveling for two decades. Though Mr. Panahi continued to work in secrecy and have his projects smuggled abroad, following 2006’s “Offside” until now he only made docudramas, injecting himself into the narratives.
Continue reading "No Justice, No Peace" »
Mandarin & Compagnie - Kallouche Cinema - Frakas Productions - France 3 Cinema
I wasn’t a fan of “Titane,” and much of my aversion could probably be attributed to its undeserved Palme d’or win. To my pleasant surprise, Julia Ducournau’s Cannes Film Festival competition follow-up, “Alpha,” is nothing like it. The film is far more artful and mature, which just goes to show that the New French Extremity filmmaker was merely lauded prematurely. Though elements of body horror seen in “Titane” and “Raw” are still very much present, the new film better qualifies as a ghost story and a coming-of-age tale set in the Twilight Zone.
Continue reading "Ghost of the Past " »
Festival de Cannes
The Phoenician Scheme (2025)
“The Phoenician Scheme” is, for better or worse, an archetypal Wes Anderson movie. The Cannes Film Festival competition entry is, once again, a timeless motion storybook about affluent eccentrics that’s symmetrical, pastel and droll. While Mr. Anderson’s rigorous mise en scène is always to be admired, telling a tale like this in the techbro oligarchy era is a choice – sort of like the cinematic equivalent of let them eat cake.
Continue reading "Beyond the Dreams of Avarice" »
Jean-Louis Fernandez/ARP Sélection
Film critics should be wary of superlatives. I’ve been on both the giving and receiving ends of this advice. Indeed, fashioning reviews after pull quotes in ad slicks is a common rookie mistake. Effusive plaudits should be used sparingly, so once deployed the readers will know you truly mean what you say. Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle vague” is one such case. But instead of hailing it as the next best somesuch, I’ll say it truly embodies the spirit of this website’s mission at launch in 2008.
See, the OG Critic’s Notebook crew met at the Cinema Studies department at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in the mid-aughts. We were intimately familiar with the French New Wave and the legends associated with the movement – the storied Cahiers du Cinéma gang that determined the best way to practice film criticism was through filmmaking. As far as I know, none of our writers or indeed our classmates have gone on to follow in the footsteps of these giants. Filmmaking has never been easier with the advent of the iPhone, yet capitalism has crushed any revolutionary spirit.
“Nouvelle vague” is specifically about the making of 1960’s “Breathless.” After watching everyone else in his ciné-club cohort successfully pivot to filmmaking, Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) is anxious to leave his own mark. He declines an offer to do literary adaptation and is dead set on making something true to his philosophies and moral positions no matter how miniscule the budget.
Continue reading "Catching the Wave" »
Schramm Film
Christian Petzold continues the exploration of his favorite theme – doubles – with “Mirrors No. 3.” Named after a Maurice Ravel composition, the film is apparently a modern Brothers Grimm fairytale per the German auteur during a post-screening Q&A at the film’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight world premiere. He’s surprisingly frazzled in person, polar opposite of the clinical precision his work projects. This is a story about doppelgängers, but with a twist.
Continue reading "Second Family" »