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There Were No Gods Left

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Boston Hassle

A collection of 167 posts

Scott Lang is No Hero in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Scott Lang is No Hero in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, is no hero.

Jingoism and Pathaan

Jingoism and Pathaan

A menacing and even sinister film.

The Wandering Earth 2 Surpasses First

The Wandering Earth 2 Surpasses First

The world was a very different place when The Wandering Earth came out in 2019, and The Wandering Earth 2 meets our changed world with a completely reimagined sequel, or rather prequel. Based on Liu Cixin’s short story of the same name, the first was a high-octane space disaster

Missing Shows Screenlife is Here to Stay

Missing Shows Screenlife is Here to Stay

Screenlife is here to stay, thanks to Timur Bekmambetov. A Kazakh-Russian director and producer, Bekmambetov is responsible for what’s likely the most outstanding formal innovation in filmmaking in decades. Quite simply: he’s uncovered and propagandized a new way to present motion pictures—in which the viewer sees everything

Humanism and Childlike Fun in Shin Ultraman

Humanism and Childlike Fun in Shin Ultraman

I remember walking out of the theater from Iron Man (2008) as a child, pushing the tips of my fingers to their extremes in order to generate that weird tingling feeling. The gesture itself looked more Emperor Palpatine than it did Tony Stark, but by some dumb childish logic, that

Interview: Belmont World Film Family Festival's Ellen Gitelman

Belmont World Film Family Festival

Interview: Belmont World Film Family Festival's Ellen Gitelman

For the first time in my tenure with the Boston Hassle, the Belmont World Film Family Festival is live and in-person (with several accessible online options). BWFFF will show 11 features, five short programs, and two workshops. From January 14-22, the festivalhas in-person showings at the New Art Center in

Broker is Kore-eda’s Anti-Manichean Masterpiece

Broker is Kore-eda’s Anti-Manichean Masterpiece

Despite being completely snubbed at the 43rd Blue Dragon Film Awards, South Korea’s more popular film award ceremony, the Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Broker stood an excellent chance to snag a few categories at the 58th Grand Bell Awards—roughly the Korean equivalent to the Academy Awards. And

Infernal Affairs and the Dark Night of the Soul

Infernal Affairs and the Dark Night of the Soul

One thing I find displeasing about the contemporary Western cinematic landscape is its visual flakiness. The best shots of our biggest blockbusters are basically lifeless realizations of pre-vis. The images just aren’t memorable. The whole “One Perfect Shot” phenomenon is remarkably ironic given how many of the contemporary shots

Oscar Goff's Best Reviews of the Year

Oscar Goff's Best Reviews of the Year

“One of the defining aspects of criticism is that the critic approaches the work with a set of standards, or even biases, to judge it by.” This observation, from literary critic and author Cynthia Ozick, is so obvious that it might seem pointless to articulate—but as the democratization of

In the Mood for Love

In the Mood for Love

I’ll never understand completionist critics. It’s better, they would have it, to see 10 unique films than only eight unique films with two re-watches littered in the mix. There are so many movies that it would be a waste to spend your precious waking minutes revisiting old film

My Top Ten Films of 2022

Damn, it was a good year for the movies. 2022 was my best year with new releases since at least 2018, if not longer. The gleeful time-travel Japanese comedy Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, produced in 2020 but not released on US streaming until 2022, was particularly painful to leave

Special Delivery is Serviceable but not Special

Special Delivery is Serviceable but not Special

An intentional riff on Baby Driver staring Park So-dam and Jung Hyeon-jun, two of the most internationally recognizable faces working in Korean cinema thanks to the globally acclaimed Parasite, Park Dae-min’s Special Delivery first came onto my radar in July when it made the rounds on Film Twitter thanks

The Love of Cinema and Last Film Show

The Love of Cinema and Last Film Show

"I want to study light. Because light becomes stories. Stories become films.” India’s entry at this year’s Academy Award for Best International Film, Chhello Show, or Last Film Show, is one of my favorite films of the year—and it will only be in theaters for a

Emergency Declaration, The Best Covid Movie?

Emergency Declaration, The Best Covid Movie?

Emergency Declaration, the 2021 Korean plane disaster movie, is the Covid film I’ve been waiting for. Most of the major Covid-era films so far have catered too strongly to the fleeting and frequently changing aspects of pandemic life: lockdown, mitigation, quarantine, technology’s reimagined role in connecting us. The

Troll Lacks Fun

Troll Lacks Fun

I hoped the Norwegian Netflix Original Troll would be this month’s (honorary) torch bearer of the Turkish Star Wars legacy, a film so dumb and ridiculous that it’s must-watch entertainment. The plot was promising enough: in a premise reminiscent of an Alex Jones montage, a 60-foot-tall troll attracted

The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special Flexes Marvel's Potential

The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special Flexes Marvel's Potential

If the DCU’s new “Kevin Feige” approaches his new role as co-CEO with as much heart, joy, and originality as he does with his The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special—at the precise moment in which Marvel appears to be losing some steam—then Hollywood might have a

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Story Deserves Your Attention

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Story Deserves Your Attention

Picture this: you’re halfway through a theatrical showing of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery and the screen begins to flicker with a green overlay on the borders of characters and other moving objects. An easily identifiable digital projection error. Obviously, parts of people shouldn’t be flickering in

Netflix Needs More Films Like The Wonder

Netflix Needs More Films Like The Wonder

The Wonder, a Florence Pugh-studded period drama with perfectly boring cinematography, is precisely the type of film Netflix needs more of: a truly memorable low-budget film with true artistic merit that’s performance- rather than star-driven. It’s a film that fully leans into what makes it work. They need

Another Middling Hindi-Language Remake

Another Middling Hindi-Language Remake

The Hindi-language Mili will feel like déjà vu if you’re at least mildly into Indian cinema, even if you never saw the original Malayalam-language film Helen, also directed by Mathukutty Xavier. The new remake will play better for those uninitiated to the Indian-cinematic world, with its three-hour-plus runtimes, genre

Slither and the Arrival of James Gunn

Slither and the Arrival of James Gunn

James Gunn was my first favorite director. And while I know this statement is likely a testament to both my young age and not falling in love with cinema until my late teens, in many ways, I’m glad it took me so long: Gunn’s a perfect first-favorite filmmaker—

BPFF Dispatch: Hush (2022) dir. Samar Qutpy / Salma's Home (2022) dir. Hanadi Elyan

BPFF Dispatch: Hush (2022) dir. Samar Qutpy / Salma's Home (2022) dir. Hanadi Elyan

One doesn’t expect to go into a screening of two small-budget Palestinian dramas and to come out hating Disney and Netflix even more… but what I learned at Thursday night’s double screening of Samar Qupty’s narrative short Hush and Hanadi Elyan’s feature length Salma’s Home is that one must always b

BPFF Review: Boycott (2022)

BPFF Review: Boycott (2022)

Available online through the Boston Palestine Film Festival, Brazilian documentary filmmaker Julia Bacha’s newest educational piece Boycott probes and de-legitimizes the anti-BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against the State of Israel) legal campaign at the state government level in the United States. Worried about the more than 30 states

BPFF Review: Huda's Salon

BPFF Review: Huda's Salon

Like a Greene novel, Huda’s Salon has its share of suicides and suicides gone amiss; affairs, perceived affairs, and could’ve-been affairs; and, of course, espionage and treason.

BPFF Review: Farha

BPFF Review: Farha

The young actress playing the title character appears to be a first-time performer and can’t be much older than her character—a rather astonishing gamble on Sallam’s behalf to bet her entire debut film (and thus, career) on. And she doesn’t just win the bet: she found

BPFF Review: Little Palestine: Diary of a Siege

BPFF Review: Little Palestine: Diary of a Siege

A little over a year ago, Yarmouk was the largest Palestinian refugee camp in the world. A long-term siege by Syrian forces that killed 181 people, a brief ISIS reign, and a destructive bombing campaign by the Russian Federation later, Yarmouk has been almost completely battered and its inhabitants scattered