In Review Online

A collection of 45 posts

Korean Cinema

The Old Woman with the Knife — Min Kyu-dong [Review]

For all their effort to hide age in the action, the filmmakers take the opposite approach to the symbolism.

In Review Online

Karate Kid: Legends — Jonathan Entwistle [Review]

Much like a child trick-or-treating in a small neighborhood and returning again and again to the same houses, the Karate Kid franchise will keep coming back until it no longer gets the goods it asks for.

Reviews

Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk — Sepideh Farsi

Fatima Hassouna might have had the brightest smile and biggest eyes in all of Gaza.

In Review Online

iHostage — Bobby Boermans [Review]

The copagandiest of them all.

Chinese Cinema(s)

Striking Rescue — Siyu Cheng [Review]

Striking Rescue cinematographer Ai Yanjie loses sight of much of the action and regrettably tempers the blows of the stunt team.

Palestinian Cinema

Leila and the Wolves — Heiny Srour [Review]

Leila and the Wolves ... holds a special place within that tradition of boundary-pushing Leftist filmmaking from the Arab Levant.

Reviews

Orenda — Pirjo Honkasalo [IFFR ’25 Review]

Orenda is by no means a bad film and in fact mightily impresses in moments, its inconsistency undermines testimony of any genuine orenda.

Reviews

Star Trek: Section 31 — Olatunde Osunsanmi

The Star Trek franchise has finally delivered its first truly unwatchable feature film

Reviews

Heavier Trip — Juuso Laatio & Jukka Vidgren

This is likely the kind of thing that Werner Herzog was talking about when he said, “I’m fascinated by trash TV. The poet must not avert his eyes.”

Reviews

The Fix — Kelsey Egan

The Fix, a new South African sci-fi film that takes place in a world where breathable air is a thing of Earth’s pastime, opens perfectly.

Reviews

Magpie — Sam Yates

Magpie is the latest boring and impotent addition to the genre shelf.

Reviews

Aberdeen — Ryan Cooper, Eva Thomas [TIFF ’24 Review]

Perhaps it’s still an important film, but it’s not particularly good.

Reviews

The Critic — Anand Tucker

Any movie that features a theater critic as a main character invites more intentional criticism.

Reviews

Maldoror — Fabrice Du Welz

this anti-creative decision turns out to be an predictive of the woefully misguided and frankly arrogant film that it precedes.

Reviews

Dancing Village: The Curse Begins — Kimo Stamboel

Instead of relying on jumping out of closets and dark rooms to generate one-second bodily reactions, The Curse Begins funneled its horror through the horrible realization that one day, if you aren’t already, you too will grow old and decrepit.

Reviews

12.12: The Day — Kim Seong-su [NYAFF ’24 Review]

“In the end, they swallowed up the nation as a whole.”

Reviews

Kubi — Takeshi Kitano [Japan Cuts ’24 Review]

It’s just a shame, and a stain on the film, that the arrival of a distorted Japan comes by weaponizing queer sexualities.

Reviews

Kalki 2898 AD — Nag Ashwin

There simply isn’t a more entertaining film in theaters right now.

Reviews

Trigger Warning — Mouly Surya

If you watch Trigger Warning, Netflix’s latest big-budget action movie, with captions turned on, you may notice the phrase “terrorist, in Arabic” in the film’s opening scene.

Reviews

Bikechess — Assel Aushakimova

Bikechess is a strange name for Assel Aushakimova’s latest work.

Reviews

Silent Land — Aga Woszczyńska

Silent Land bores by reveling too much in its own insincere cleverness, even if Woszczyńska and her filmmaking team show promise as visual thinkers.

Reviews

The Sales Girl — Sengedorj Janchivdorj

“The thing in the corner is a vagina tightener."

Reviews

Jeanne du Barry — Maïwenn

After acknowledging all of these insurmountable asterisks ... one can admit that Jeanne du Barry still succeeds in many respects.

Reviews

The Roundup: Punishment — Heo Myeong-haeng

The copaganda finally outruns the action choreography.

Reviews

The Three Musketeers: Part II – Milady — Martin Bourboulon

A specter is haunting cinema — that of commercial modernity.