Daily Archives: September 12, 2023

“Rotting in the Sun” is the most sexually explicit gay missing person hunt in the history of cinema. It’s a dark, deadpan comedy that isn’t really funny, but whose premise is the the quintessence of “permission to laugh.” A suicidal … Continue reading →

A rich and powerful patriarch faces the end with a household full of women scheming against him in “The Origin of Evil,” a clever and twisty French thriller that’s a little bit “King Lear” and a little bit more “Sucession.” … Continue reading →

“Outlaw Johnny Black” takes its title from “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” its first gag from “A Fistful of Dollars,” its hero’s wardrobe from “Django Unchained,” its plot from “Buck and the Preacher” (sort of) and its cast from a pool … Continue reading →

I was attending my first New York Film Festival in 1990 when the Chinese Cinema Revolution reached America’s shores. The film was Zhang Yimou and Yang Fengliang’s overwrought, elegaic and allegorial “Ju Dou,” and it gave much of the world … Continue reading →