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2024

★★★½ Watched 31 Dec 2024

‘Oh, Canada’ Finds Paul Schrader in Territories Both New and Familiar

"Oh, Canada" marks a change of pace for Paul Schrader following the completion of his "Man in a Room" trilogy. Still, it isn’t difficult to see what drew him to Russell Banks’ 2021 novel "Foregone" and its narrative about an ailing filmmaker grappling with the mythology surrounding his career, one that no less includes the kind of calls to action among which many might count "First Reformed." Employing the…

2024

★★★½ Watched 07 Mar 2025

The Terrible Absurd Reigns Supreme under ‘The Rule of Jenny Pen’

Though an all-time headline pairing alone ought to make James Ashcroft’s "The Rule of Jenny Pen" appointment viewing, this unusually thoughtful genre exercise’s comment on tyranny and the absurdities indulged in its service lingers even after the thrill of watching John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush eviscerate each other has subsided. The film’s central character is appropriately a judge—a safekeeper of enlightenment ideals stranded in the lawless abyss of a countryside…

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2025

★★½ Watched 30 Jan 2025

‘Sorry, Baby’ Means Well and Little Else

“Sorry, Baby” is told in four chapters (plus an epilogue), but everything wrong with this self-congratulatory feature debut from writer-director-lead Eva Victor can be summed up in just three scenes. Nestled in the autumnal, mahoganied milieu of New England academia, the film follows an English grad who’s been spiraling ever since completing her thesis. Though her career is on a promising track—she spends afternoons teaching the great novels of the 20th century (most prominently…

2025

★★★ Watched 29 Jan 2025

‘Sukkwan Island’ Not Remote Enough for Dad Outrunning Himself

Nature’s an easy place to idealise. Both the tortured artist’s getaway of preference and where wayward souls (at least in movies) go for renewed purpose, nature keeps us honest—or so we like to believe. Seclusion, after all, isn’t kind to the self-avoidant. But for a divorced parent played by Film Twitter’s favorite lawyer, the Norwegian fjords’ rugged terrain is a means of escaping, rather than facing, reality. Desperate to recover lost…

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