Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Asphalt City (Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire)
I entered Asphalt City at last year’s EnergaCAMERIMAGE festival with nothing but morbid curiosity. Having engendered some rank responses from its Cannes premiere and not secured any known U.S. distributor, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s film had the right kind of bad-object energy one needs at the jetlagged start to their week in a small Polish city. (Or just the comfort I personally get from a Brooklyn-shot feature featuring two Club Random guests.) I walked away boasting complicated, fascinated enthusiasm: nearly every second is ridiculous and never boring, and it doesn’t not deserve to play at a cinematography festival––having the most cinematography counts for something. Starting and ending with a blatant homage to The New World...
Asphalt City (Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire)
I entered Asphalt City at last year’s EnergaCAMERIMAGE festival with nothing but morbid curiosity. Having engendered some rank responses from its Cannes premiere and not secured any known U.S. distributor, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s film had the right kind of bad-object energy one needs at the jetlagged start to their week in a small Polish city. (Or just the comfort I personally get from a Brooklyn-shot feature featuring two Club Random guests.) I walked away boasting complicated, fascinated enthusiasm: nearly every second is ridiculous and never boring, and it doesn’t not deserve to play at a cinematography festival––having the most cinematography counts for something. Starting and ending with a blatant homage to The New World...
- 4/19/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
These days it’s somewhat difficult to fathom there was a time when Leonardo DiCaprio was not recognized as one of the finest actors of his generation. Born with preternaturally good looks, talent, and an obvious degree of taste, DiCaprio has grown onscreen from precocious child actor to heartthrob, to movie star, and finally to revered leading man. At least onscreen.
With that meteoric career-trajectory beginning at the remarkably early age of 18 in the movie This Boy’s Life, DiCaprio has had the rare opportunity to carefully curate and shape his career from virtually the beginning, and in the process has left behind a body of work that is increasingly choosey—and well chosen. But which are the best performances, and which are the ones that didn’t work out? Read on to find out.
*Editor’s Note: We are focusing only on DiCaprio’s feature film performances where the actor...
With that meteoric career-trajectory beginning at the remarkably early age of 18 in the movie This Boy’s Life, DiCaprio has had the rare opportunity to carefully curate and shape his career from virtually the beginning, and in the process has left behind a body of work that is increasingly choosey—and well chosen. But which are the best performances, and which are the ones that didn’t work out? Read on to find out.
*Editor’s Note: We are focusing only on DiCaprio’s feature film performances where the actor...
- 10/20/2023
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
On the surface, it looks like any other teenage love story: Abel, an absent-minded high-school student in Budapest, hopelessly pines for his best friend, Erika, dreamily staring out the classroom window when the teacher calls his name. On the day of his final exam, he draws a blank: Rather than bury his head in his history books, Abel’s had his head in the clouds.
But an off-hand comment by one of his examiners, about the tricolor ribbon pinned to his lapel — a nationalist symbol in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary — sparks a controversy that soon snowballs into a nationwide scandal. For Hungarian filmmaker Gábor Reisz, the director of “Explanation for Everything,” the debate cuts to the heart of a question that has increasingly dominated public discourse in his country since the rise of the right-wing prime minister: “Are you a real Hungarian?”
The film, which premieres in the Horizons strand of the Venice Film Festival,...
But an off-hand comment by one of his examiners, about the tricolor ribbon pinned to his lapel — a nationalist symbol in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary — sparks a controversy that soon snowballs into a nationwide scandal. For Hungarian filmmaker Gábor Reisz, the director of “Explanation for Everything,” the debate cuts to the heart of a question that has increasingly dominated public discourse in his country since the rise of the right-wing prime minister: “Are you a real Hungarian?”
The film, which premieres in the Horizons strand of the Venice Film Festival,...
- 9/2/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Whatever one may think of Luc Besson’s oeuvre, his films work best when they live up to their trashy potential. The director’s cinema is littered with all-out demented interludes and comic-book exaggerations. Think of Rihanna quoting Paul Verlaine’s poem “A Poor Young Shepherd” while gyrating on a stripper pole in his intergalactic romp Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets; or, more recently, Russian supermodel Sasha Luss mowing down throngs of thugs inside a restaurant in Anna. Besson’s always been particularly fluent in the art of the unreal, and Dogman, his latest, is engineered as one such tale: a pulpy story of an outcast who turns a whole pack of dogs into loyal allies in his fight against injustice. But the film never owns up to its deranged premise, and a staid, predetermined script sands off its most shamelessly ridiculous moments––the only moments when Dogman truly comes to life.
- 8/31/2023
- by Leonardo Goi
- The Film Stage
Bonjour Tristesse: Ropert Explores Rude Awakenings in Tender Coming-of-Age Portrait
“What am I doing in this world?” wrote Paul Verlaine in his classic poem “The Song of Gaspard Hauser,” the Symbolist French poet most closely aligned with the fin de siecle, importantly the concept of one era’s segue into another. The poem and the motif represent several subtle subtexts in Petite Solange, the fourth film by writer- director Axelle Ropert, perhaps best known as the scribe for Serge Bozon.
A melancholic coming-of-age story of an adolescent girl’s grappling with her parents’ impending divorce, it’s a quietly conceived composite of bittersweet epiphanies regarding oft-disappointing reality of the world and our loved ones.…...
“What am I doing in this world?” wrote Paul Verlaine in his classic poem “The Song of Gaspard Hauser,” the Symbolist French poet most closely aligned with the fin de siecle, importantly the concept of one era’s segue into another. The poem and the motif represent several subtle subtexts in Petite Solange, the fourth film by writer- director Axelle Ropert, perhaps best known as the scribe for Serge Bozon.
A melancholic coming-of-age story of an adolescent girl’s grappling with her parents’ impending divorce, it’s a quietly conceived composite of bittersweet epiphanies regarding oft-disappointing reality of the world and our loved ones.…...
- 3/23/2023
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Tom Verlaine, singer and guitarist for punk legends Television who crafted the band’s 1977 masterpiece Marquee Moon, has died at the age of 73.
Jesse Paris Smith, the daughter of Patti Smith, confirmed Verlaine’s death following a “brief illness” to Rolling Stone on Saturday. “He died peacefully in New York City, surrounded by close friends. His vision and his imagination will be missed,” Smith wrote.
“This is a time when all seemed possible,” Patti Smith wrote in a tribute on Instagram, which included a photo of her and Verlaine. “Farewell Tom,...
Jesse Paris Smith, the daughter of Patti Smith, confirmed Verlaine’s death following a “brief illness” to Rolling Stone on Saturday. “He died peacefully in New York City, surrounded by close friends. His vision and his imagination will be missed,” Smith wrote.
“This is a time when all seemed possible,” Patti Smith wrote in a tribute on Instagram, which included a photo of her and Verlaine. “Farewell Tom,...
- 1/28/2023
- by Daniel Kreps
- Rollingstone.com
Tom Verlaine, whose Television band was one of the more influential groups on the New York Punk scene in the 1980s, died today at 73 in Manhattan.
Jesse Paris Smith, the daughter of Patti Smith, announced the death, attributing it to “after a brief illness” in her statement. .
Television was not a huge commercial success, but Verlaine was a vast influence on guitarists of the era, and continued on as a solo artist after the group broke up after two albums.
Verlaine was the band’s lead singer and did most of the songwriting. His deep lyrics and the group’s somewhat ethereal sound made them a favorite of those who wanted some art with their rock. The former Thomas Miller adopted the name of poet Paul Verlaine as an added touch.
Signed to Elektra Records, Television’s first major label album, Marquee Moon, arrived in 1977. Increasing tensions between Verlaine and...
Jesse Paris Smith, the daughter of Patti Smith, announced the death, attributing it to “after a brief illness” in her statement. .
Television was not a huge commercial success, but Verlaine was a vast influence on guitarists of the era, and continued on as a solo artist after the group broke up after two albums.
Verlaine was the band’s lead singer and did most of the songwriting. His deep lyrics and the group’s somewhat ethereal sound made them a favorite of those who wanted some art with their rock. The former Thomas Miller adopted the name of poet Paul Verlaine as an added touch.
Signed to Elektra Records, Television’s first major label album, Marquee Moon, arrived in 1977. Increasing tensions between Verlaine and...
- 1/28/2023
- by Bruce Haring
- Deadline Film + TV
French director Axelle Ropert makes an unwise shift from sprightly comedy to faux-naive artificiality with “Petite Solange,” a tiresome divorce drama seen through the eyes of an adolescent girl. Though clearly meant as a refreshing, femme-centric throwback to a style of filmmaking that petered out in the 1970s (Ropert cites inspiration from François Truffaut and Luigi Comencini), the results merely feel out of place, bizarrely innocent and clumsily executed. The fault lies in both concept and script, making it unlikely that “Solange” will be gracing many screens outside Francophone territories.
Danger signs are apparent right from the start when Benjamin Esdraffo’s inescapable saccharine music too quickly accompanies the action. The tunes are part and parcel of the film’s entire design, from the pale filtered visuals to the ’70s-influenced clothing — is that really a baked casserole the father serves up for dinner, and what on earth is going on...
Danger signs are apparent right from the start when Benjamin Esdraffo’s inescapable saccharine music too quickly accompanies the action. The tunes are part and parcel of the film’s entire design, from the pale filtered visuals to the ’70s-influenced clothing — is that really a baked casserole the father serves up for dinner, and what on earth is going on...
- 8/6/2021
- by Jay Weissberg
- Variety Film + TV
Whatever one may think of Luc Besson’s futuristic space opera Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets, the idea of spending a cool $225 million so that Rihanna can mount a stripper pole and recite some lines from the poet Paul Verlaine’s “A Poor Young Shepherd” to an audience of one (in full high-tech space suit, sans helmet) in an extraterrestrial red light district named after a lesser-known Sylvester Stallone movie with a following among French cinephiles—all while being accompanied on keys by a leather-cowboy-hatted, multi-facial-pierced Ethan Hawke, as a character named Jolly The Pimp—has got to count as some kind of art. Because what’s the point of making stupidly expensive, effects-smothered movies if you can’t do things on a whim?
Valerian, which was adapted by Besson from Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières’ long-running French sci-fi comics series Valérian And Laureline, is the ...
Valerian, which was adapted by Besson from Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières’ long-running French sci-fi comics series Valérian And Laureline, is the ...
- 7/14/2017
- by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
- avclub.com
On the occasion of Joseph Nechvatal's upcoming exhibition at Galerie Richard in New York (April 12 through May 26), the recent publication of his new book Immersion into Noise, and a concert of his remastered viral symphOny in surround sound. Taney Roniger is an artist and writer who lives and works in Brooklyn.
Bradley Rubenstein: We really want to get into the new book, as well as the upcoming show, but can you take a minute and give us a little backstory? You have always slipped in and out of categories: actions, painting, sound art, writing....
Joseph Nechvatal: Well, when I was going to undergraduate art school at Southern Illinois University (Siu), I was making drawings and little gouaches and smaller-type paintings on paper, generally. And they were well-received. I was not so interested in painting on canvas at the time. You have to put it in the perspective of the...
Bradley Rubenstein: We really want to get into the new book, as well as the upcoming show, but can you take a minute and give us a little backstory? You have always slipped in and out of categories: actions, painting, sound art, writing....
Joseph Nechvatal: Well, when I was going to undergraduate art school at Southern Illinois University (Siu), I was making drawings and little gouaches and smaller-type paintings on paper, generally. And they were well-received. I was not so interested in painting on canvas at the time. You have to put it in the perspective of the...
- 3/29/2012
- by bradleyrubenstein
- www.culturecatch.com
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