New York Film Festival
NYFF Review: Todd Haynes Turns Up the Volume for His Engaging Velvet Underground Doc
This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 New York Film Festival. The Pitch: The Velvet Underground might have been the best American rock band of all time, and Todd Haynes has made a documentary about their relatively short but extremely influential career, which means covering not just core members Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Moe Tucker, but collaborators and contemporaries like Nico, Andy Warhol, and Jonas Mekas. Started Shaking to That Fine, Fine Music: Todd Haynes obviously loves rock and roll, which makes it all the more impressive that he’s spent his career making movies about key figures in its history while avoiding the usual lionizing cliches. Starting with Superstar, his doll-acted Karen Carpenter biopic that’s not commercially available, and continuing wit...
NYFF Review: Joel Coen Goes Solo in Style with The Tragedy of Macbeth
This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 New York Film Festival. The Pitch: The Coen Brothers plus Shakespeare — whaddaya need, a roadmap? Actually, you might; or at least a program note to explain why The Tragedy of Macbeth has only one Coen on hand. It’s not a retro affectation that Joel Coen is taking sole director credit, as he used to on the joint Coen projects (until 2004’s The Ladykillers, Joel took “director” and Ethan handled “producer,” even though they were always really doing both). Ethan is taking a break from making movies, while Joel has mounted a black-and-white version of Shakespeare’s famous (and fleetest?) tragedy, with Denzel Washington as Lord Macbeth, who becomes convinced he must take bloody action to fulfill his destiny and become king of Scotland, and France...
Steve McQueen’s Mangrove Is a Courtroom Masterpiece: Review
This review originally ran in September 2020 as part of our coverage of the 2020 New York Film Festival. The Pitch: In 1968, Notting Hill was a slowly-growing hub of Black culture in London, filled with West Indian immigrants of various stripes who congregated at Frank Crichlow’s (Shaun Parkes) Mangrove Restaurant… Please click the link below to read the full article. Steve McQueen’s Mangrove Is a Courtroom Masterpiece: Review Clint Worthington You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back their fair share of Internet revenue.
Michelle Pfeiffer Goes from Catwoman to Cat Lady in the Messy French Exit: NYFF Review
This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 New York Film Festival. The Pitch: Frances Price (Michelle Pfeiffer) is a wealthy widow in her mid-60s, with a tongue as silver as the spoon in the mouth of her hanger-on son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges). Unfortunately, her gravy train is about to run out as her financial planner informs her she’s completely broke — a scenario he’s warned the mercurial Frances about for nearly a decade. Without skipping a beat, she illegally sells her worldly possessions and drags Malcolm (along with their cat, Small Frank) with her to Paris, along with the remainder of their funds. Together, they occupy her friend Joan’s (Susan Coyne) apartment and figure out what their next steps are — or, in the case of Frances, her last ones. Lost in Translation: At f...
John Boyega Walks the Thin Blue Line in the Astounding Red, White and Blue: NYFF Review
This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 New York Film Festival. The Pitch: Continuing his probing look at the lives of the West Indian immigrant communities of 1960s-1980s London, Steve McQueen concludes his Small Axe anthology with the real-life tale of Leroy Logan (John Boyega), who’d eventually become one of the Metropolitan Police’s most decorated superintendants. Before he got there, though, he was a young research scientist who decides to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a police officer — much to the chagrin of his father Kenneth (Steve Toussaint), a proud Jamaican who’s experienced the racism and brutality of the British bobbies firsthand. As a young recruit, Leroy excels; he’s top of his class, physically fit, and immensely principled. But the minute he str...
Sofia Coppola’s On the Rocks Finds Bill Murray on a Pure Charm Offensive: NYFF Review
This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 New York Film Festival. The Pitch: Laura (Rashida Jones) is in crisis. From the outside, it might not seem so: She’s a published author with another book deal on lock, she’s got a handsome husband named Dean (Marlon Wayans) and two beautiful girls, and they live in the kind of well-furnished Manhattan apartment you only see in sitcoms. But Dean’s started to spend more time outside of the home, ostensibly to work on his social media startup with his tall, gorgeous colleague Fiona (Iron Fist‘s Jessica Henwick), and his excuses for his absence have grown increasingly flimsy. Hence, the crisis: She can’t concentrate on her book, she’s increasingly aloof to her school pickup mom-partner Vanessa (Jenny Slate), and she can’t quite get Dean to c...
Steve McQueen’s Mangrove Revolutionizes the Courtroom Drama: NYFF Review
This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 New York Film Festival. The Pitch: In 1968, Notting Hill was a slowly-growing hub of Black culture in London, filled with West Indian immigrants of various stripes who congregated at Frank Crichlow’s (Shaun Parkes) Mangrove Restaurant for spicy food, pumping beats, and a sense of community. But when sustained police interference with the restaurant — constant raids, fines and charges for prostitution and drug possession — led to a protest that turned violent, Crichlow and eight other defendants were brought in front of the Old Bailey on charges of incitement to riot. But this trial wouldn’t be like Black Power trials of the past: the Mangrove Nine, including Crichlow, Black Panther activist Altheia Jones-LeCointe (Letitia Wright), Darcus...
Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock Is a Reggae-Filled Celebration of Black Joy: NYFF Review
The Pitch: In London’s West Indian community in 1980, a house party brews. The men haul furniture out to the backyard and bring in huge speakers to replace it, while the women crowd into the kitchen, cooking goat curry and plaintains while singing and laughing with each other. Men and women file in one at a time, paying the bouncer while the DJ pumps in the songs of Carl Douglas, Sister Sledge, Janet Kay — romantic reggae, “Lover’s Rock”. This is the setting for Steve McQueen‘s Lovers Rock, a glimpse into the Blues parties that served as an important space for Black Londoners of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s to find community, solidarity, and love, as a rotating ensemble of characters sing and scrub throughout the evening. And in the middle of it all, a young woman named Martha (Amarah-Jae...
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