Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Astrakan (David Depesseville)
Astrakhan fur is unique: dark, beautiful, and stripped exclusively from newborn lambs, even ones killed in their mother’s womb. (Stella McCarthy once said it’s like wearing a fetus.) That ruthlessness—a sense of lost innocence; blood sacrifice—runs deep in Astrakan, a new film from France and one of the better in Locarno this year; and if that title isn’t enough to give pause, plenty else in the opening exchanges will. The first act is a procession of flags, both red and false: at the opening the protagonist, Samuel, lightly goads a snake in the reptile house of a zoo; moments later a rabbit is hung and skinned in his kitchen with all the ceremony of...
Astrakan (David Depesseville)
Astrakhan fur is unique: dark, beautiful, and stripped exclusively from newborn lambs, even ones killed in their mother’s womb. (Stella McCarthy once said it’s like wearing a fetus.) That ruthlessness—a sense of lost innocence; blood sacrifice—runs deep in Astrakan, a new film from France and one of the better in Locarno this year; and if that title isn’t enough to give pause, plenty else in the opening exchanges will. The first act is a procession of flags, both red and false: at the opening the protagonist, Samuel, lightly goads a snake in the reptile house of a zoo; moments later a rabbit is hung and skinned in his kitchen with all the ceremony of...
- 4/5/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Christopher Nolan, Spike Lee, Chantal Akerman, Theo Angelopoulos, Lynne Ramsay, Tsai Ming-liang, Michael Haneke, Lee Chang-dong, Terence Davies, Shōhei Imamura, Bi Gan, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Jia Zhangke, Wong Kar-wai, Yorgos Lanthimos, Denis Villleneuve, Céline Sciamma, Guillermo del Toro, Kelly Reichardt. Those are just a few of the filmmakers introduced to New York audiences at New Directors/New Films over the last half-century across over 1,100 premieres.
Now returning for its 53rd edition at Film at Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art from April 3-14, this year’s lineup features 35 new films, presenting prizewinners from Berlin, Cannes, Locarno, Sarajevo, and Sundance film festivals. Ahead of the festival kicking off next week, we’ve gathered fourteen films to see, and one can explore the full lineup and schedule here.
All, or Nothing at All (Jiajun “Oscar” Zhang)
In All, or Nothing at all, director Jiajun “Oscar” Zhang employs an experimental...
Now returning for its 53rd edition at Film at Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art from April 3-14, this year’s lineup features 35 new films, presenting prizewinners from Berlin, Cannes, Locarno, Sarajevo, and Sundance film festivals. Ahead of the festival kicking off next week, we’ve gathered fourteen films to see, and one can explore the full lineup and schedule here.
All, or Nothing at All (Jiajun “Oscar” Zhang)
In All, or Nothing at all, director Jiajun “Oscar” Zhang employs an experimental...
- 4/1/2024
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Africans with Mainframes (Kima Hibbert)
What if electronic music was invented in the 1920s by Black sharecroppers in the American South? That’s the premise of Kima Hibbert’s debut short, in which a reclusive blogger uncovers a major conspiracy surrounding the origins of electronic music.
Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club
Bottoms (Emma Seligman)
It’s beginning to feel like South By Southwest is the Rachel Sennott Festival. After breaking out there three years ago with Shiva Baby (the movie premiered as a short in 2018 and would have again as a feature in 2020 if not for the pandemic), she made waves last year in Austin with sleeper horror hit Bodies Bodies Bodies. Now Sennott’s back with Bottoms, one of two...
Africans with Mainframes (Kima Hibbert)
What if electronic music was invented in the 1920s by Black sharecroppers in the American South? That’s the premise of Kima Hibbert’s debut short, in which a reclusive blogger uncovers a major conspiracy surrounding the origins of electronic music.
Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club
Bottoms (Emma Seligman)
It’s beginning to feel like South By Southwest is the Rachel Sennott Festival. After breaking out there three years ago with Shiva Baby (the movie premiered as a short in 2018 and would have again as a feature in 2020 if not for the pandemic), she made waves last year in Austin with sleeper horror hit Bodies Bodies Bodies. Now Sennott’s back with Bottoms, one of two...
- 2/16/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
2024 Sundance Film Festival
Through Sunday, one can experience the 2024 Sundance Film Festival from the comfort of their own home, if it’s in the United States. Having seen over 50 titles in the lineup, in terms of films with tickets still available I can highly recommend Good One, Between the Temples, Tendaberry, Black Box Diaries, Ibelin, Kneecap, Didi, Brief History of a Family, Porcelain War, Sugarcane, Sujo, Seeking Mavis Beacon, Skywalkers: A Love Story, Union, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, and Realm of Satan. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: Official Site (through Sunday only)
Amanda (Carolina Cavalli)
Sofia Coppola’s eighth feature doesn’t hit theaters for another few months, but you’d be forgiven if you thought it was actually Amanda, writer-director Carolina Cavalli’s darkly humorous,...
2024 Sundance Film Festival
Through Sunday, one can experience the 2024 Sundance Film Festival from the comfort of their own home, if it’s in the United States. Having seen over 50 titles in the lineup, in terms of films with tickets still available I can highly recommend Good One, Between the Temples, Tendaberry, Black Box Diaries, Ibelin, Kneecap, Didi, Brief History of a Family, Porcelain War, Sugarcane, Sujo, Seeking Mavis Beacon, Skywalkers: A Love Story, Union, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, and Realm of Satan. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: Official Site (through Sunday only)
Amanda (Carolina Cavalli)
Sofia Coppola’s eighth feature doesn’t hit theaters for another few months, but you’d be forgiven if you thought it was actually Amanda, writer-director Carolina Cavalli’s darkly humorous,...
- 1/26/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Beyond Utopia (Madeleine Gavin)
The name Pastor Kim comes up early in Madeleine Gavin’s Beyond Utopia. A gentle, aching man, Pastor Kim tells Gavin he has ensured the escape of over 1,000 people from North Korea in the last 10 years. He’s one of the leaders of this Underground Railroad in the area, leading defectors through rivers, mountains, and forests with rods in his neck, rolled ankles, and multiple surgeries plaguing his physical health over the years. Kim becomes the doc’s lynchpin, the character who provides light to the defectors and audience. In short: he’s a hero. – Michael F. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Bottoms (Emma Seligman)
It’s beginning to feel like South By Southwest is the Rachel Sennott Festival.
Beyond Utopia (Madeleine Gavin)
The name Pastor Kim comes up early in Madeleine Gavin’s Beyond Utopia. A gentle, aching man, Pastor Kim tells Gavin he has ensured the escape of over 1,000 people from North Korea in the last 10 years. He’s one of the leaders of this Underground Railroad in the area, leading defectors through rivers, mountains, and forests with rods in his neck, rolled ankles, and multiple surgeries plaguing his physical health over the years. Kim becomes the doc’s lynchpin, the character who provides light to the defectors and audience. In short: he’s a hero. – Michael F. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Bottoms (Emma Seligman)
It’s beginning to feel like South By Southwest is the Rachel Sennott Festival.
- 12/1/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Bottoms (Emma Seligman)
It’s beginning to feel like South By Southwest is the Rachel Sennott Festival. After breaking out there three years ago with Shiva Baby (the movie premiered as a short in 2018 and would have again as a feature in 2020 if not for the pandemic), she made waves last year in Austin with sleeper horror hit Bodies Bodies Bodies. Now Sennott’s back with Bottoms, one of two new movies she’s headlining this week, and which adopts many characteristics of an SXSW offering: it’s gay, it’s bloody, and it’s horny. – Jake K. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Cassandro (Roger Ross Williams)
Rather than reverting to a traditional biopic structure––i.e. a greatest hits (and...
Bottoms (Emma Seligman)
It’s beginning to feel like South By Southwest is the Rachel Sennott Festival. After breaking out there three years ago with Shiva Baby (the movie premiered as a short in 2018 and would have again as a feature in 2020 if not for the pandemic), she made waves last year in Austin with sleeper horror hit Bodies Bodies Bodies. Now Sennott’s back with Bottoms, one of two new movies she’s headlining this week, and which adopts many characteristics of an SXSW offering: it’s gay, it’s bloody, and it’s horny. – Jake K. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Cassandro (Roger Ross Williams)
Rather than reverting to a traditional biopic structure––i.e. a greatest hits (and...
- 9/22/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
The Adults (Dustin Guy Defa)
Six years after directing his last feature, Dustin Guy Defa returns with The Adults, a film of complicated shared histories and gradually revealing inner lives. With his relatively sprawling Person to Person, Defa followed a wide array of characters over five interweaving storylines. This time he focuses on one family and, closer still, on an unmistakable feeling: that of moving out and growing up, only to return home and realize all that delicately assembled adulthood was merely a façade. Playing out across a leafy town in upstate New York, The Adults follows a trio of siblings as they reunite: the brother who went away and the sisters who did not. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream:...
The Adults (Dustin Guy Defa)
Six years after directing his last feature, Dustin Guy Defa returns with The Adults, a film of complicated shared histories and gradually revealing inner lives. With his relatively sprawling Person to Person, Defa followed a wide array of characters over five interweaving storylines. This time he focuses on one family and, closer still, on an unmistakable feeling: that of moving out and growing up, only to return home and realize all that delicately assembled adulthood was merely a façade. Playing out across a leafy town in upstate New York, The Adults follows a trio of siblings as they reunite: the brother who went away and the sisters who did not. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream:...
- 9/8/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Babylon (Damien Chazelle)
Those seeking an insightful exploration of cinema history in Hollywood’s Golden Age or a nuanced, affecting character study on the lives within this early era will mostly like be disappointed by Damien Chazelle’s latest. Babylon is a brash, bombastic, unwieldy comic opera conveyed with enough bad taste and directorial panache that it—refreshingly—registers as a refutation of the well-mannered prestige drama to which these kinds of nostalgic odes often conform. And while there’s a touch of wistfulness in regards to the communal power of big-screen cinema, the film is more defined by an acidic unsentimentality, both when it comes to its characters and the precarious world they inhabit. Capturing the mad, violent clash of high...
Babylon (Damien Chazelle)
Those seeking an insightful exploration of cinema history in Hollywood’s Golden Age or a nuanced, affecting character study on the lives within this early era will mostly like be disappointed by Damien Chazelle’s latest. Babylon is a brash, bombastic, unwieldy comic opera conveyed with enough bad taste and directorial panache that it—refreshingly—registers as a refutation of the well-mannered prestige drama to which these kinds of nostalgic odes often conform. And while there’s a touch of wistfulness in regards to the communal power of big-screen cinema, the film is more defined by an acidic unsentimentality, both when it comes to its characters and the precarious world they inhabit. Capturing the mad, violent clash of high...
- 7/21/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. (Kelly Fremon Craig)
Like Judy Blume’s treasured young adult classic, Kelly Fremon Craig’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret begins in 1970 with 11-year-old Margaret Simon (Abby Ryder Fortson) getting the worst news any New York City-raised child can get: her family is moving to New Jersey. It’s not only that Margaret will have to leave behind her wise-cracking grandmother Sylvia (Kathy Bates) or her friends or school, but that being 11 years old often means everything is the end of the world. The crushing despair that makes adolescence feel like a rueful eternity is Fremon Craig’s specialty. – Fran H. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Avatar: The Way of Water...
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. (Kelly Fremon Craig)
Like Judy Blume’s treasured young adult classic, Kelly Fremon Craig’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret begins in 1970 with 11-year-old Margaret Simon (Abby Ryder Fortson) getting the worst news any New York City-raised child can get: her family is moving to New Jersey. It’s not only that Margaret will have to leave behind her wise-cracking grandmother Sylvia (Kathy Bates) or her friends or school, but that being 11 years old often means everything is the end of the world. The crushing despair that makes adolescence feel like a rueful eternity is Fremon Craig’s specialty. – Fran H. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Avatar: The Way of Water...
- 6/9/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Air (Ben Affleck)
Sonny Vaccaro knows his basketball. As played with reliable conviction by Matt Damon, the head scout in Nike’s dwindling hoops division has a keen eye for the next great players, attending high school all-star tournaments around the country and scanning for potential endorsements. But Sonny is also a gambler, and on the tail end of his trips he jets over to Las Vegas to lock in a couple parlays, betting on NBA money lines and spreads before throwing all his winnings away at the craps table a minute later. You get the sense this has become his beleaguered ritual. At some point those basketball instincts and his penchant to go for broke will align and finally pay off.
Air (Ben Affleck)
Sonny Vaccaro knows his basketball. As played with reliable conviction by Matt Damon, the head scout in Nike’s dwindling hoops division has a keen eye for the next great players, attending high school all-star tournaments around the country and scanning for potential endorsements. But Sonny is also a gambler, and on the tail end of his trips he jets over to Las Vegas to lock in a couple parlays, betting on NBA money lines and spreads before throwing all his winnings away at the craps table a minute later. You get the sense this has become his beleaguered ritual. At some point those basketball instincts and his penchant to go for broke will align and finally pay off.
- 5/12/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
2nd Chance (Ramin Bahrani)
It’s an eerie image. Richard Davis stands out in a field, wearing a kevlar vest, and points a pistol into his belly. Then he pulls the trigger, skips back a bit, and checks his red-burned skin. Over the course of his life, he would do this—shoot himself—192 times, proving the efficacy of his life-saving device in the most visceral and operatic way possible. “A lot of people think I’m stupid for doing this,” he tells the camera before one of these high-wire demonstrations, and for just a moment, an air of unpredictability hangs over this bullet-proof vest magnate’s next move. – Jake K. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Devotion (J.D. Dillard)
Devotion adheres to...
2nd Chance (Ramin Bahrani)
It’s an eerie image. Richard Davis stands out in a field, wearing a kevlar vest, and points a pistol into his belly. Then he pulls the trigger, skips back a bit, and checks his red-burned skin. Over the course of his life, he would do this—shoot himself—192 times, proving the efficacy of his life-saving device in the most visceral and operatic way possible. “A lot of people think I’m stupid for doing this,” he tells the camera before one of these high-wire demonstrations, and for just a moment, an air of unpredictability hangs over this bullet-proof vest magnate’s next move. – Jake K. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Devotion (J.D. Dillard)
Devotion adheres to...
- 1/13/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
This week’s New to Streaming column is sponsored by Matthew Heineman’s Retrograde, now streaming on Disney+, courtesy of National Geographic Documentary Films.
Retrograde (Matthew Heineman)
There’s a common view that one needs distance and perspective to truly process and reconcile current events before making a worthwhile film on any particular subject, be it narrative or nonfiction. Throughout his intrepid career, Matthew Heineman has refuted this notion, immersing himself in the Syrian conflict, on the front lines of the Mexican drug war, and NYC’s early days of Covid-19. In each instance he has delivered full-bodied, cinematic portraits of considerable immediacy, humanity, and discernment of the events unfolding around him. His work not only provides vital dispatches of ongoing conflict,...
This week’s New to Streaming column is sponsored by Matthew Heineman’s Retrograde, now streaming on Disney+, courtesy of National Geographic Documentary Films.
Retrograde (Matthew Heineman)
There’s a common view that one needs distance and perspective to truly process and reconcile current events before making a worthwhile film on any particular subject, be it narrative or nonfiction. Throughout his intrepid career, Matthew Heineman has refuted this notion, immersing himself in the Syrian conflict, on the front lines of the Mexican drug war, and NYC’s early days of Covid-19. In each instance he has delivered full-bodied, cinematic portraits of considerable immediacy, humanity, and discernment of the events unfolding around him. His work not only provides vital dispatches of ongoing conflict,...
- 12/9/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
This week’s New to Streaming column is sponsored by Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love, now streaming on Disney+, courtesy of National Geographic Documentary Films.
Fire of Love (Sara Dosa)
In a bond forged over mutual fascination (or obsession) with the mysteries of volcanoes, Katia and Maurice Krafft dedicated their lives to discovering everything they could about these natural phenomena. Forces of both awe-inspiring wonder and tragic disaster, Sara Dosa’s archival documentary Fire of Love gracefully captures this extreme dichotomy while also getting to the heart of what drove this couple to abandon a routine, domesticated lifestyle and literally sacrifice their lives in the mission to save others. In telling their devotion to one of the natural world’s most dangerous forces,...
This week’s New to Streaming column is sponsored by Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love, now streaming on Disney+, courtesy of National Geographic Documentary Films.
Fire of Love (Sara Dosa)
In a bond forged over mutual fascination (or obsession) with the mysteries of volcanoes, Katia and Maurice Krafft dedicated their lives to discovering everything they could about these natural phenomena. Forces of both awe-inspiring wonder and tragic disaster, Sara Dosa’s archival documentary Fire of Love gracefully captures this extreme dichotomy while also getting to the heart of what drove this couple to abandon a routine, domesticated lifestyle and literally sacrifice their lives in the mission to save others. In telling their devotion to one of the natural world’s most dangerous forces,...
- 11/11/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
’80s Horror
While the new release horror offerings are lacking this month, leave it to The Criterion Channel to deliver the ultimate series for the season. ’80s Horror features a great number of classics and underseen titles, including films by John Carpenter (Prince of Darkness), Tobe Hooper (The Funhouse), David Cronenberg (Scanners), Michael Mann (The Keep), and Paul Schrader (Cat People), along with Wolfen, The Slumber Party Massacre, Near Dark, Vampire’s Kiss, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, and many more. Get ready for some thrills.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Atlantis (Ben Russell)
Piecing together a whirlpool of shimmering images from a trip to Malta, experimental filmmaker Ben Russell raises the fabled utopian city of Atlantis from the sea. Russell’s...
’80s Horror
While the new release horror offerings are lacking this month, leave it to The Criterion Channel to deliver the ultimate series for the season. ’80s Horror features a great number of classics and underseen titles, including films by John Carpenter (Prince of Darkness), Tobe Hooper (The Funhouse), David Cronenberg (Scanners), Michael Mann (The Keep), and Paul Schrader (Cat People), along with Wolfen, The Slumber Party Massacre, Near Dark, Vampire’s Kiss, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, and many more. Get ready for some thrills.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Atlantis (Ben Russell)
Piecing together a whirlpool of shimmering images from a trip to Malta, experimental filmmaker Ben Russell raises the fabled utopian city of Atlantis from the sea. Russell’s...
- 10/7/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Aftershock (Tonya Lewis Lee and Paula Eiselt)
A work of deep pain and fervent justice, Tonya Lewis Lee and Paula Eiselt’s Sundance winner Aftershock examines the failings of maternal health support particularly as it relates to Black mothers. Centering on two NYC families forever torn apart after maternal deaths due to childbirth-related complications, the film takes an intimate look at the widowers and family left behind as they pick up the pieces to fight for change in a prejudiced system. Amongst its most interesting passages, the filmmakers also go back decades and beyond, filling in the historical foundation for how we ended up with our current, faltering maternal health system and setting the stage for how it can be changed.
Where...
Aftershock (Tonya Lewis Lee and Paula Eiselt)
A work of deep pain and fervent justice, Tonya Lewis Lee and Paula Eiselt’s Sundance winner Aftershock examines the failings of maternal health support particularly as it relates to Black mothers. Centering on two NYC families forever torn apart after maternal deaths due to childbirth-related complications, the film takes an intimate look at the widowers and family left behind as they pick up the pieces to fight for change in a prejudiced system. Amongst its most interesting passages, the filmmakers also go back decades and beyond, filling in the historical foundation for how we ended up with our current, faltering maternal health system and setting the stage for how it can be changed.
Where...
- 7/22/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Bitterbrush (Emelie Mahdavian)
Watch an exclusive clip above.
While they don’t know it yet, this is, for friends Colie Moline and Hollyn Patterson, the end of five years range riding together in the American Pacific Northwest. It’s also their most comfortable after trading the usual camper for an old cabin this summer. With only themselves and a crew of herd dogs for assistance, they take to the Idahoan plains in search of the beef cattle and calves they’ve been contracted to reclaim. The work is tiring and tenuous in consistency, but also spiritually and physically rewarding—if not financially. Colie and Hollyn have grown close: an easy rapport and trust that allows director Emelie Mahdavian (and us) a glimpse into their personal lives,...
Bitterbrush (Emelie Mahdavian)
Watch an exclusive clip above.
While they don’t know it yet, this is, for friends Colie Moline and Hollyn Patterson, the end of five years range riding together in the American Pacific Northwest. It’s also their most comfortable after trading the usual camper for an old cabin this summer. With only themselves and a crew of herd dogs for assistance, they take to the Idahoan plains in search of the beef cattle and calves they’ve been contracted to reclaim. The work is tiring and tenuous in consistency, but also spiritually and physically rewarding—if not financially. Colie and Hollyn have grown close: an easy rapport and trust that allows director Emelie Mahdavian (and us) a glimpse into their personal lives,...
- 6/24/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Kicking off this Thursday is one of the finest annual showcases in indie filmmaking, BAMcinemaFest, taking place at Bam Rose Cinemas. Among both well-curated highlights from recent festivals and world premieres, we’ve rounded up six essential features not to miss.
The festival also includes a number of notable new shorts, including Lynne Sachs’ Swerve (see our trailer premiere), Robert Machoian and Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck’s The Last Days of August, Rodney Evans’ Portal, and more. Check out our feature picks below and learn more here.
2nd Chance (Ramin Bahrani)
It’s an eerie image. Richard Davis stands out in a field, wearing a kevlar vest, and points a pistol into his belly. Then he pulls the trigger, skips back a bit, and checks his red-burned skin. Over the course of his life, he would do this—shoot himself—192 times, proving the efficacy of his life-saving device in the most visceral and operatic way possible.
The festival also includes a number of notable new shorts, including Lynne Sachs’ Swerve (see our trailer premiere), Robert Machoian and Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck’s The Last Days of August, Rodney Evans’ Portal, and more. Check out our feature picks below and learn more here.
2nd Chance (Ramin Bahrani)
It’s an eerie image. Richard Davis stands out in a field, wearing a kevlar vest, and points a pistol into his belly. Then he pulls the trigger, skips back a bit, and checks his red-burned skin. Over the course of his life, he would do this—shoot himself—192 times, proving the efficacy of his life-saving device in the most visceral and operatic way possible.
- 6/21/2022
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Burning (Lee Chang-dong)
After Poetry, it makes sense that Lee Chang-dong would find himself interested in deconstructing another literary genre: the murder mystery. Adapting Haruki Murakami’s short story “Barn Burning” for the screen, the South Korean master has created something that feels akin to a real page turner, with each cut, the tensions, and the mystery rise as we become desperate to know whatever happened to Shin Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo), the young woman who went missing, leaving her childhood friend Lee Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) searching for her. With pulpy characters, including a delicious Steven Yeun as a mysterious Gatsby-like figure, and a dark sense of humor, the film also serves as a study of class and the way in which the...
Burning (Lee Chang-dong)
After Poetry, it makes sense that Lee Chang-dong would find himself interested in deconstructing another literary genre: the murder mystery. Adapting Haruki Murakami’s short story “Barn Burning” for the screen, the South Korean master has created something that feels akin to a real page turner, with each cut, the tensions, and the mystery rise as we become desperate to know whatever happened to Shin Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo), the young woman who went missing, leaving her childhood friend Lee Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) searching for her. With pulpy characters, including a delicious Steven Yeun as a mysterious Gatsby-like figure, and a dark sense of humor, the film also serves as a study of class and the way in which the...
- 6/17/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
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