In comparison, the western world’s absurd fascination with social media, online celebrity/fandom, and socioeconomic gain in virtual reality seems to take a noticeable backseat to the immense obsession that is China’s ultra-live streaming epidemic. Filmmaker Hao Wu’s tellingly spry and insightful documentary People’s Republic of Desire is an involving expose of this technological addiction gone…
“I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you — Nobody — too? Then there’s a pair of us!” — Emily Dickinson They are children of the streets. You can see them in the slums and marginalized neighborhoods of every major city in the world — begging, selling trinkets or other wares, carrying heavy loads for some…
Cultures and genres clash cutely enough in Mike Wiluan’s east/west mashup Buffalo Boys, an action pic that’s high on energy and low on originality. Make of that what you will, but considering the aim appears to be a sort of genre refresher, it’s easy to feel an aura of missed opportunities when the story proves…
Christmas Blood is rather a bland title. Perhaps in translating from the native Norwegian — the snappier “Juleblod” — they could have jumped to the unused moniker of “Silent Night, Deadly Night”: “Slayride.” Reinert Kiil’s film is very much in the same ballpark as the 1984 seasonal “classic” (there aren’t that many slasher flicks where…
At a time when typical Hollywood fare consists of retreads and blockbusters aimed at mass markets, introspective and highly personal films have become increasingly rare. That alone is reason to celebrate Alfonso Cuarón’s (“Gravity”) Roma, an intimate journey that draws on the director’s memory of a childhood filled with domestic turmoil as well as a…
The effects of bullying and the pressures to achieve popularity in a high school setting are put under a harsh and unforgiving microscope in director Jonatan Etzler’s dark short Get Ready With Me. Opening with mopey teacher Lukas (Shanti Roney, “Applause”) asking his students to show their video projects to the class, the movie immediately…
Outwardly unexpressive but inwardly volatile, Jongsu (Yoo Ah-in, “The Throne”), a young delivery man, aspires to be a writer but does not write. He asks himself, “What kind of story can I write?” but he is an outsider looking to the world to provide a story for him. “To me, the world is a mystery,”…
