Compared to 2017, this year's doc scene felt somehow less vibrant (if stats have any value, I listed half the number of entries but I've seen the same amount). Nonetheless, two YouTube montages stood out: The Road Movie and Our New President, both set in Russia and both dealing with... Read more →
12/13/2018
12/27/2017
CHART: MY FAVORITE DOCUMENTARIES OF 2017
click on the image to read the full list A few comments and highlights Graduation by Claire Simon (#1) Le Concours exposes the ideologies inherent to the evaluation and assessment process of a prestigious school, the inconsistencies of "meritocracy", the logic of privilege and exclusivity, self branding and the performance... Read more →
CHART: MY FAVORITE MOVIES OF 2017
Click on the image to read the full list A few comments and highlights The Killing of a Sacred Deer by Yorgos Lanthimos (#1) [also made it to the Greatest Horror Films 2010-2020 list] Phenomenal psychosomatic metaphysical parable about retribution and vengeance in a morally bankrupt world. Lanthimos' robotic deadpan... Read more →
12/15/2016
CHART: MY FAVORITE DOCUMENTARIES OF 2016
One cannot live in desperate times like these without wondering how and why we reached such lows. The list of grievances is long: persistent neoliberalism, increasing precarization, total commodification, environmental disasters, labor exploitation, the militarization of police, brutal warfare, terrorism, mass surveillance, racial incarceration, social cleansing, corporate America, the military-industrial... Read more →
12/14/2016
CHART: MY FAVORITE FILMS OF 2016
Some critics are lamenting an increasing "marginalization of cinema" (e.g. Kent Jones, Film Comment), while others believe that the medium has completely lost its cultural relevance and influence (among others, Bret Easton Ellis). Interestingly, most observers seem unable to agree even on what constitutes "cinema" today: in an age marked... Read more →