What appears at first as a staid political thriller about the disappearance of the daughter of a congressional candidate turns out to be a delightfully pulpy exercise in vengeance and furious anger. This is pretty great, surprisingly enough. I had zero expectations going in other than knowing Korea’s finest, Son Ye-jin, was in it. She delivers a shockingly batshit performance, which is so unlike her usual persona and it’s amusing to watch her out of her comfort zone. She plays…

A decent popcorn flick and nothing more. The first film still remains the best MCU entry for me. This one’s too preoccupied with glib pop cultural remarks and on-the-nose soundtrack choices for my liking. Also, its theme on family kinda overstays its welcome at times. The film is at its best when showcasing its cartoonishly vibrant CGI set-pieces. The space battles are quite superb, almost rivaling the action sequences from the new Star Wars movies. Plenty of jokes would undoubtedly…

Shane Carruth’s alluring Upstream Color is Invasion of the Body Snatchers for the art house crowd, with hogs replacing pods and identity crisis substituting for McCarthyism. That may be an awfully crude comparison but it’s the overall gist I got as I watched this beguiling, beautiful film. One thing’s for sure, the plot’s mind-control science fiction aspect plays only second fiddle to the transcendent yet universal overarching theme of emotional resonance in people in the vein of Henry David Thoreau’s…

Contemplative cinema can be a bitch. This most elusive of art house varieties has repeatedly rendered me awestruck, but at the same time hopelessly nonplussed all at once. With that said, the sensory experience waiting in store for viewers in Post Tenebras Lux, perhaps the most idiosyncratic and abstract work to date from Mexican, transcendental filmmaker Carlos Reygadas, can be quite overwhelming and intimidating. If one is unfamiliar with the director’s influences—namely Robert Bresson, Carl Theodore Dreyer, Roberto Rossellini, and…