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Lore (Sky Hopinka, 2019)

A very interesting change of pace for Hopinka, both literally, in terms of the general tempo of the film (more of a steady lento than previous f...

Teal (Björn Kämmerer, 2019)

Given the structuralist nature of the work, you might expect Björn Kämmerer's new film Teal to have a nice round number of shots. But nope. It...

The Giverny Document (Ja'Tovia Gary, 2019)

A good work of art is often about something. It has an idea about a given topic and perhaps makes a series of propositions about that topic, hop...

Austrian Pavilion (Philipp Fleischmann, 2019)

Unlike so many of the experimental filmmakers who have come out of Austria in recent years, Philipp Fleischmann is not primarily concerned with cinematic...

¡Hace Color!

Hi all, so sorry for the lack of updates, especially after I promised some sneak-peeks into the upcoming avant-garde season. But to be honest, it's been ...

The Sky is Clear and Blue Today (Ricky D'Ambrose, 2019)

After Ricky D'Ambrose's expansion into feature-length territory with Notes on an Appearance, it's gratifying to see that he is still a master of...

QT Discourse Free Zone

Well folks, if you came here looking for my hot-to-lukewarm take on Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood, you're out of luck. As the debates rage on ...

The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg, 2019)

A Twitter acquaintance of mine, Jeva Lange, wrote a terse ...

No Respect

Today, while hunting around the Interwebs for recent episodes of the 2019-07-29 01:37:13 +0000 UTC View Post

Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno (Abdellatif Kechiche, 2017)

"Indulgent" is not an adjective I throw around lightly. As a diehard defender of experimental film, I am all too aware that the world is filled with nitw...

Notes on 3 Recent Films by Colectivos Los Ingrávidos

I discovered the work of the Mexican filmmaking group Los Ingrávidos last year while previewing films for the Crossroads festival. I discovered their highly impressive Sun Quartet, a suite of films that were not like anything I'd seen in...

Non-Fiction (Olivier Assayas, 2018)

The French title of Non-Fiction is Doubles vies, and the fact that there are essentially two unrelated titles for this film indicates j...

A Faithful Man (Louis Garrel, 2018)

Few first-time directors have as many resources at their disposal as Louis Garrel, major French actor, son of legendary director Philippe Garrel. And he ...

Sword of Trust (Lynn Shelton, 2019)

I can't speak with any real authority about Lynn Shelton as a director. I wasn't as impressed with her breakout Humpday (2009) as some others we...

Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar, 2019)

Pedro Almodóvar is like an emotionally unavailable boyfriend. It seems that on the rare occasions that he lets down the guard of his fantastical, melodr...

Science Without Substance (Daniel Barnett, 2019)

It took me a few false starts, but I finally sat down with Dan Barnett's new feature film. Barnett, for those who've joined the program already in progre...

Ralf's Colors (Lukas Marxt, 2019)

German-based, Austrian-born experimental filmmaker Lukas Marxt has been an interesting figure for quite awhile now. Where so many of his Viennese colleag...

Back on Twitter (Somewhat)

So some of you may have noticed that, after all my pontificating and garment-rending, I am back on Twitter. I could be stubborn and stay away as a point ...

La Flor (part three / conclusion) (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

There's no point denying the overall power and importance of La Flor. Before seeing the film, I jokingly referred to it as a "megalith," and unb...

La Flor (part two) (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

Well past the halfway point of this monster, and I must say I am feeling rather ambivalent. There is a formal elegance underpinning La Flor that...

Douglas Crimp (1944-2019)

The art critic and queer theorist Douglas Crimp passed away a few days ago, on July 5, at the age of 74. Douglas was a professor of mine during the ninet...

Sorry bud.

La Flor (part one) (Mariano Llinás, 2018)

Of course it is entirely too premature for me to say anything too intelligent about La Flor, since I am only in the middle of Section T...

Meanwhile, in the Real World

“Every day, to earn my daily bread I go to the market where lies are bought. Hopefully I take up my place among the sellers.” (David Ehrlich)

Supply and Demand

So folks are quitting this Patreon, not exactly in "droves," but with enough regularity to make me think perhaps a change might be in order. My own prior...

Earth (Nikolaus Geyrhalter, 2019)

In some respects, this is Geyrhalter's weakest film in quite some time. Whereas the power of his work had always lay in his still, nearly silent images, Earth is quite verbose, featuring brief interviews with numerous men and women involv...

Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller, 2019)

Theirs is to win / If it kills them / They're just humans / With wives and children . . .

A beautiful real-life companion piece -slash- co...

Distributor List!

If you're like me, you find yourself constantly checking in with the websites of various independent film distributors, to see what they have picked up r...

Our Mothers (César Díaz, 2019)

Originally a film I stopped watching at the 30-minute mark, I decided to go back to it upon learning that Ela Bittencourt had written about it in the lat...

Three Rejected Post Ideas

I had some momentary plans, and then I thought better of it. Here's a sampling of what I chose not to subject you to.

1. An Open Letter to ...