Three days into this year’s San Diego Latino Film Festival, I’m still very much enjoying myself. Festival fatigue—that inevitable wave of exhaustion one gets from watching several movies in a row, then returning home to write about them—has not yet set in, though I’m sure it will in a few days. So I’m committed to […]
SDLFF 2013: Dispatch #2 — “The Body” and “Nostalgia for the Light” Read More »
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t envious of fellow film bloggers who are reporting from South by Southwest in Austin, Texas this week—I haven’t been back there since I first attended in 2009—but plenty of cinematic discoveries await me at the local San Diego Latino Film Festival. Now in its twentieth year, the
SDLFF 2013: Dispatch #1 — “De jueves a domingo” and “La sirga” Read More »
Rest assured: this is the only Oscar predictions post you’ll see on Critic Speak all year. While the rest of the Internet film community becomes obsessed with statuettes come November, writing almost exclusively about precursors and frontrunners and “Oscar buzz” for the next four months, we pride ourselves on keeping the focus on real criticism.
Our Oscar Picks and Predictions Read More »
The highest grossing Korean film of all time, Dong-hoon Choi’s “The Thieves” has been repeatedly characterized by critics as its native country’s take on Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s 11” remake. While there are certainly surface similarities between the films—both deal with a band of robbers pulling off a major heist—the comparison hardly seems fair in that
Blu-Ray Review: “The Thieves” Read More »
Honorable Mentions: “Argo” – Ben Affleck continues his career resurgence in front of and behind the camera with the year’s best crowd-pleaser. Centering on the true story of how the C.I.A. extracted several Americans from Tehran during the Iran Hostage Crisis posing as a film crew, “Argo” manages to be an affectionate satire of Hollywood
James Frazier’s Top 10 Films of 2012 Read More »
Despite a lackluster crop of summer blockbusters—“The Dark Knight Rises,” in particular, was a colossal disappointment—2012 turned out to be a very good year at the movies. Two weeks ago, with several key films left to see, I began actively wishing that I would be disappointed by my remaining viewings because I didn’t want to
Danny Baldwin’s Top 10 Films of 2012 Read More »
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching numerous Chinese historical dramas on Blu-Ray this past year, it’s that Chinese moviegoers must know a lot more about their country’s history than Americans do ours. With little exposition, these films plunge the viewer into complicated situations where prior knowledge is essential to finding one’s bearings. As
Blu-Ray Review: “The Assassins” Read More »
“Doomsday Book” is an anthology film comprised of three shorts from two preeminent Korean directors, one of whom Western audiences are familiar with (Ji-woon Kim, who made the cult favorites “The Good, The Bad and the Weird” and “I Saw the Devil”) and another who they’ll now want to know more about (Pil-Sung Yim). Yim’s
Blu-Ray Review: “Doomsday Book” Read More »
Certain literary works, especially those that traffic in the fantastical, are best left on the page because they cannot be brought to cinematic life in a manner that remains true to their original spirit. Presumably, this is the case with Qing Dynasty author Pu Songling’s “Erotic Ghost Story,” a beloved work in Chinese culture, but
Blu-Ray Review: “Painted Skin: The Resurrection” Read More »
David Weissman and Bill Weber’s documentary “We Were Here” operates on two levels by providing both an overarching account of the 1980s San Francisco AIDS crisis and intimate portraits of five people who lived through it. The group of subjects, comprised of four men and a woman, offer a variety of perspectives: the guilt-ridden survivor,
Streaming Pick: “We Were Here” (2011) Read More »
