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The Yards (2000)
Even if The Yards is not a wholly original crime drama, it still retains a freshness in moving its study of classical corruption and redemption arcs in inverse directions, as James Gray draws heavily from The Godfather in style and narrative to closely examine a young gangster’s struggle within his corrupt family.
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Incendies (2010)
The characters of Incendies contain remarkable and shocking depths, hidden not just to others but to themselves as well, and the process of uncovering these by tracing the footsteps of family history through the Middle East makes for a disturbingly revelatory journey delivered with a deft hand by Denis Villeneuve.
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Fresh (2022)
Although Mimi Cave’s remarkable crafting of atmospheric tension through blood-red production design and relationship metaphors may exceed her ability to craft a wholly original story, that is all Fresh needs to pull us along in its tight, repulsive grip, where a young woman’s kidnapping at the hands of a charming, business-minded cannibal develops into a…
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Design for Living (1933)
The title Design for Living could be the name of some 1930s instructional manual on how to fit one’s life into a pre-set box, but it is exactly those rigid structures which Ernst Lubitsch shuns in his polyamorous rotating of two men around a single woman, playing out unconventional character dynamics that are as honest…
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The Witch (2015)
With extensive historical research backing up his authentic vernacular and bleak visual design, Robert Eggers instils a strangely antiquated sort of realism into The Witch, unfolding the disintegration of an exiled Pilgrim family in a colonial American folktale of horrific supernatural occurrences.
