French filmmaker Julia Ducournau’s (Raw) wildly uneven yet highly ambitious Titane is a frenzied, are you able to suspend your belief, adrenalin-pumping film that is not for the faint of heart or those who don’t deal well with queasiness in their filmgoing experiences. With Rotten Tomatoes Scores of 89% (critics) and 85% (audiences), I find it ironic that I couldn’t identify ten people to whom I might recommend this film. Yet for the film purists who crave the originality that mainstream movies too often fail to deliver, you’ll find a bizarre take on humanity richly laced with stylistic metaphors in what originates as a slasher-flick before transitioning into something incredibly more intimate in its progression.
Category Archives: International
Who You Think I Am (2019)
Obsessive catfishing 101. This could be the easiest way to describe the Juliette Binoche (The English Patient, Chocolat) character-driven vehicle Who You Think I Am. Adapted from the novel of the same name, Safy Nebbou (Mark of an Angel) crafts a taught romantic drama with just enough suspense and twists to keep us actively engaged as we follow Claire (Binoche) navigate her way through the very real world of catfishing.
The Worst Person in the World (2021)
First things first. The Worst Person in the World is a terrible name for a movie, especially a slightly heavy drama that centers around the indecisiveness of a 30-year-old woman named Julie (Renate Reinsve) and those affected by her actions. The title of this movie suggested it would be some stupid comedy. It took 30 seconds of the trailer to realize that my initial perceptions were entirely wrong and that I had to see this film as quickly as possible. I ended up watching it the next day. It was a terrific decision. Ignore the movie’s dumb movie title. You should see this movie too.
Riders of Justice (2020)
In a year when movies have been the worst of my lifetime, I have been pleasantly surprised by the originality of the three most recent films I have seen. Jockey, A Hero, and Anders Thomas Jensen Riders of Justice gave the year a late jolt of hope that the year can amount to something more. However, it may be too late with only a dozen or so movies left to see (and even fewer than I am excited to see). Different from the first two movies, Riders of Justice, while a neat little film, won’t finish in my end-of-year top ten, which is something that I believe Jockey and A Hero will.
A Hero (2021)
I recently took an annual leave day off from work. The plan was to attend my local independent art-house theater and see a movie that would receive a nomination for some Academy Awards. I watched an early morning showing of Jockey, a quiet, little film in its own right that will be what I review next. Upon leaving, I spotted a poster of A Hero. It was a film I had seen pop in advertisements on some of my other frequently visited movie websites. It had intrigued me, but I knew it was a subtitled (Persian) movie. I need to be in the right mindset, or I’ll get distracted and miss everything. Still, I debated buying a ticket and doing a double feature. But then I saw it was an Amazon Prime movie. I looked up the film on my phone and noticed that the movie was available on Prime starting that day. So, I decided to skip the theater viewing and watch it at home instead. I’m glad I did, but only because the film was a bit longer (127 minutes). I wanted to break it up into a couple of chunks (full transparency, I also took a quick nap between Jockey and A Hero…by the time I started the second movie, I was ready to go).