Category Archives: Movies

Review: It Was Just an Accident

Posted on May 7, 2026 by philipbrasor

After It Was Just an Accident won the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes, its director, Jafar Panahi, accompanied it to many other film festivals, including Busan, where I first saw it in September and which honored Panahi with its … Continue reading →

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Review: The Last Dance and They Will Kill You

Posted on May 6, 2026 by philipbrasor

According to the South China Morning Post, Anselm Chan’s melodrama The Last Dance is the highest grossing Hong Kong film in history, at least domestically; which is amazing given the film’s setting and subject matter. Cantonese standup comic Dayo Wong … Continue reading →

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Review: The Life of Chuck

Posted on May 1, 2026 by philipbrasor

What Stephen King’s horror stories share with his non-horror stories are carefully constructed narratives based on humanist impulses. His characters, even the ones who are nominally evil, present with traits that everyone can easily identify and maybe even empathize with. … Continue reading →

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Review: Deaf

Posted on April 30, 2026 by philipbrasor

When it comes to movies about disabilities, people with hearing impairment comprised one of the first groups to receive dramatic treatments that were not only sympathetic but insightful into the peculiar challenges they faced in a hearing world. Coda, a … Continue reading →

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Review: Where to Land

Posted on April 25, 2026 by philipbrasor

Though Long Island indie filmmaker Hal Hartley has worked fairly steadily since his heyday in the 90s, the movies he made in the 00s and 10s didn’t seem to gain as much traction, even among the kind of cinephiles who … Continue reading →

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Review: Arco

Posted on April 24, 2026 by philipbrasor

This French animated film, which was nominated for an Oscar, is set in two time periods, 2075 and 900 years later. The world of 2075 is carefully extrapolated from the world we live in now, a place of deadly downpours … Continue reading →

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Review: Twiggy and This Is Sparklehorse

Posted on April 23, 2026 by philipbrasor

The moral of the story that comes through in Sadie Frost’s fawning documentary about 60s fashion icon Twiggy—born Lesley Hornby to working class parents in Cockney London in 1949—is that good character will always hold sway even during the most … Continue reading →

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Review: The Old Oak and Lost Land

Posted on April 22, 2026 by philipbrasor

The Old Oak, the title of what is reported to be Ken Loach’s last film, refers to a superannuated pub in Durham, a small town in northern England that was once sustained by a local coal mine, which closed some … Continue reading →

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Review: Song Sung Blue and Is This Thing On?

Posted on April 17, 2026 by philipbrasor

As a producer-director, Craig Brewer has made a lot of music-related narrative works, including the florid hip-hop industry dramas Hustle & Flow and Empire, which address the business side of major label music more than the creative side. He’s never … Continue reading →

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Review: Köln 75 and It’s Okay!

Posted on April 10, 2026 by philipbrasor

The cheeky German film, Köln 75, purports to tell the true story behind a famous musical event, the 1975 solo concert by jazz pianist Keith Jarrett in the West German city of Cologne (Köln). The recording of that concert went … Continue reading →

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