Four stories, each intense and tragic, all connected in some way to relate a singular narrative. Many films are told this way – director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu often constructs his films in this way – but few are as worthy of celebration as Babel. Taking its name from the Tower of Babel, which in the [...]

If you know even a little about the premise of Funny Games - you start dreading what you are going to witness from the first frame itself. This fact alone is a commentary on how violence, and the expectation of violence has seeped into our consciousness - almost to a point where we dread its [...]

The important question The Cove doesn’t answer, because the filmmakers can only venture to guess, is why? The documentary showcases such a strange stubbornness on the part of the Japanese government, working in defense of a minority of unscrupulous fishermen, for the trade of goods that make only a small amount of money and poison [...]

A film like Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion is difficult to approach so long after the fact as having been discussed and dissected for decades by film critics and scholars, it’s impossible to say anything new about it. Released in 1937, it was immediately embraced by the film community, becoming the first non-English film ever nominated [...]

There comes a moment in some movies after which it can do no wrong. In (500) Days of Summer, it’s a split-screen sequence that contrasts romantic hero Tom Hansen’s (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) heightened expectations for a party with the disappointing reality. It’s whimsical in its construction, but so sad in its effect. Like the rest of [...]

Unrelentingly cynical and sharp as a razor blade, Armando Iannucci’s In The Loop comes at audiences with the intensity of a blow to the face. At this point in the decade, when just about every critical thing that can be said about the inner workings of governments – particularly governments preparing to enter into a [...]

“Al fin de la batalla,
y muerto el combatiente, vino hacia él un hombre
y le dijo: ‘No mueras, te amo tanto!’
Pero el cadáver ¡ay! siguió muriendo.”
“La Masa”, César Vallejo, 1937
A man enters a room while another man lies inside a tanning bed. They have an exchange about how their company is downsizing and the troubles it [...]

The title of Arnaud Desplechin’s A Christmas Tale evokes a sentimental, fairytale-like feeling. It suggests a story in which all problems are brought to heel by spirit of the holiday, sweeping away conflict and renewing old bonds. Desplechin’s film does not play out this way, but is instead a deep and complex family drama (occasionally [...]

Food Inc. is a movie you don’t want to see. See it anyway. I didn’t want to see it either. I’ve seen a lot of movies like it, and they don’t make me happy. They make me angry. But I keep seeing them, because I want to know what they have to tell me, and [...]

Terrence Malick’s The New World is, essentially, a story of wonder. The opening moments play almost like a climax as the Native Americans nervously and excitedly watch the English ships pulling into the shore, and the English lay eyes for the first time on what will eventually become the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia. The film [...]