NYAFF 2018: Dante Lam Mini-Retrospective

Despite having already premiered in New York earlier this year in a smattering of local cinemas, the screening of Dante Lam’s latest film, the Chinese mega-blockbuster Operation Red Sea, was one of the most hotly anticipated events of this year’s…

NYAFF 2018: On Happiness Road and the Cost of Cultural Fluidity

[Warning: Spoilers Ahead] When Lin Shu-Chi returns to her childhood home in Taiwan, she finds everything changed. The fetid, canal running through her neighborhood is now a tidy town park and the buildings leveled by the 1999 Jiji earthquake have…

Ant-Man and the Wasp Movie Review:A Pleasing, Low-Stakes Palette Cleanser for the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Light Spoilers Ahead  What’s a franchise to do after raising the stakes as high as conceivably possible? For those keeping score, the last film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Russo’s Avengers: Infinity War, saw the combined efforts of the…

Whitney Movie Review: Music Icon Doc Shows Humility And Heartbreak

There always was an interesting juxtaposition to Whitney Houston. The R&B icon had one of the most powerful voices in the history of the genre, able to captivate a stadium of people with the hold of a line or the…

Damsel Movie Review: Zellner brothers’ latest is a darkly funny feminist western

Westerns are big right now, and for good reason. Classic examples of the genre tend to embody American ideals of strong, heroic men triumphing over nature, beating the bad guys, and getting the pretty, helpless girl. It presents quite an…

Tag Movie Review: Ensemble Cast Sleeps Through Stale Slapstick

Based on a 2013 story written in The Wall Street Journal about a group of friends who’ve played the same game of tag for over 20 years, Tag never escapes its general premise. Since this is a Hollywood movie, all…

211 is a Heist Film By a Director Who Can’t Direct Action and Actors Who Won’t Act

The press notes for York Alec Shackleton’s 211 claim the film was inspired by the Battle of North Hollywood, a real-life shootout between two heavily armed bank robbers and the Los Angeles Police Department the morning of February 28, 1997.…