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Belfast stars Outlander’s Caitríona Balfe as the mother of a working-class Northern Irish family during The Troubles. Religious tension and the lack of opportunities put the family in a difficult position: they’re the first in many generations to think about leaving the city of Belfast. They all have to navigate so many difficult questions on […]

Minari is a film written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung, about a Korean-American family in search of the so-called American Dream. It is an intimate drama that is powerful yet quiet, and filled with moments of innocence. With dreamlike scoring, unique characters, and a captivating climax, this movie tugs on the heartstrings, and serves […]

In this office comedy of errors, Javier Bardem plays Blanco, the titular boss, but whether he is actually good is what the movie wryly examines. As head of a small manufacturing company, Blanco treats his employees intimately, going so far as make their problems his own. He believes this is why his company is nominated […]

It’s admirable how A Taste of Love keeps to the gentle pace of a slice-of-life story instead of blowing things up with unnecessary drama, but it’s ultimately just too thinly drawn for any of its moments to become charming in their simplicity. There’s nothing particularly wrong with any of its plot threads—emotionally they’re all pretty […]

Us and Them follows two former lovers who reminisce and reassess their decade-long relationship over one night. They both seem to be in better places, certainly financially if anything else, but their shared wistfulness for the past threatens to prove otherwise.  The film was an immediate hit when it was first released in China, and […]

Organized crime and drug dealing has been a topic of many a film, sometimes even glamorizing the whole endeavor, but rarely do these depictions acknowledge the weight it can do to a culture, particularly indigenous cultures. Birds of Passage is a film about drug dealers, but it’s a much more distinct take, tackling Colombia’s reputation […]

Not to be confused with the American cop thriller with the same name, Shōhei Imamura’s Black Rain is about the atomic bomb, but it’s not really concerned about nuclear warfare. Sure, the film opens with gruesome shots of the day the bomb dropped, not sparing the viewers from the gore and the titular nuclear fallout, […]

What’s great about this highly inventive film is that it doesn’t look like it was shot through three iPhone 5s. Instead of using shaky cameras and static shots, Tangerine glides us through saturated, orange-toned scenes that evoke the Los Angeles sunset. Launching director Sean Baker into prominence, Tangerine is an innovative film that, at heart, […]

No one likes to be replaced. Even when it gets difficult, hardwork and years put in effort to take and keep these roles makes it feel precious, and that’s exactly how househelp Raquel feels in The Maid. It’s a funny domestic comedy, with a scowling Catalina Saavedra ready to protect the role she’s held onto […]

Kristen Stewart stars as Melinda, a girl entering the gauntlet of freshman year in high school who is also carrying a heavy secret: after suffering an assault over the summer at a party, she has become determined to speak as little as possible. Melinda’s subjective experience is presented without mediation, melodrama nor moralism, but rather […]

Before the late 2010s push for more Asian American and lesbian cinema, there were movies already making strides toward better representation. One of the first to achieve this was Saving Face. Despite this film being the first feature for writer-director Alice Wu and actress Lynn Chen, and the first lead role for Michelle Krusiec, the […]

The story that Whale Rider tells is a familiar one: that of a young girl challenging the expectations of a patriarchal community in order to claim her rightful place in a position of authority. But this isn’t a superficial girl-power movie; writer/director Niki Caro maintains the utmost reverence for this Māori community, even if its […]

The film for which Kristen Stewart became the first American actress to win the César Award. The Twilight star turned indie prodigy plays next to another award favorite, Juliette Binoche, as her assistant. When rehearsing for the play that launched her career many years earlier, Binoche’s character, Maria, blurs the line between fiction and reality, her […]

One’s home country should be the place where a citizen has their rights, but that’s not the case in Charlie’s Country. At times, the film seems like a simple, straightforward depiction of an Aboriginal man living in a Westernized society, but David Gulpilil, who stars and who co-wrote the script, subtly infuses his community’s rage […]

While surpassed by the masterpiece Tár, Todd Field already garnered critical acclaim by his first feature debut In The Bedroom all the way back in 2001. The story is a familiar revenge drama that we might have heard from stories from small towns, but the way Field captures it is fascinating, with its challenging, layered […]

The entirety of Pieces of April takes place on Thanksgiving Day, a busy holiday meant to bring loved ones together. Sure enough, April, the eldest Burns daughter, takes great pains to prepare a nice dinner for her visiting family. But we soon learn that she is motivated less by excitement than by dread: she’s long […]

Take this Waltz is a movie that wants you to have a problem with it. It’s about a woman (Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine) torn between her husband (played by Seth Rogan) and a new man who entered her life. It’s an emotional and honest account as well as a mature slice-of-life film that you will appreciate […]

Generally, a mentorship is a great way to find guidance and direction, but rarely do we discuss the importance of finding the right mentor– or the right mentors– and that it sometimes takes a while to find a great fit. Searching for Bobby Fischer is about real-life child chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin, but rather than […]