#Maggie Cheung’s performance was perfect

[teafiend]

This ending to “Comrade: Almost a Love Story” (1996) hits as hard as it did more than two decades ago. Hopeful and poignant, it was the perfect ending 👏🏽

The movie is so, so fabulous ⭐️

An oldie favourite, I am struck anew by how stunning and accomplished Maggie Cheung is 🌸🤩👏🏽

#甜蜜蜜

[seadragon-sailing]

I must ask the mod:

Do you have voice headcanons and/or claims for your characters?

Alright! This one's gonna be a doozy for ya girl here because it seems like in any AU I put my main OCs in, I have to really make sure that their voices suit how they sound in my head as well as their mannerisms and what languages they use (the language I try to do my best with, but it mainly comes down to the sound of the voice more than anything).  In this case, I think only Feng and Tamara get their usual Voice-Claims which will be listed in this post because they ALWAYS sound a certain way to me that I can never seem to let go of.

Unfortunately, because of my dumb ass messing up the format of this post, I’ll have to put links to video clips or even audio clips instead ^^;; Sorry, everyone!

I’m gonna put the rest of the stuff under the cut because... Oooooh, it’s a bit of a mess. I’m so sorry!

--

Kyung's Voice-Claim: CoCo Lee

English Speaking: (X)

Cantonese (I’m pretty sure it is, I think...) Speaking: (X)

Fun fact: Originally, I was going to go with Kelly Chen, mainly for her singing voice in her rendition of “Reflection” from Mulan due to it sounding more like how I would imagine Kyung’s singing voice would be like in this AU, but I’m glad I did some more digging!  I love CoCo Lee’s energy, her laugh and how she can sound a little more silly at times!

--

Shinju’s Voice-Claim: Maggie Cheung

English Speaking: (X)

Cantonese Speaking: (X)

Fun fact: I’m quite happy that I dug more for this one rather than just going with Lucy Liu like I had originally planned.  Her regular speaking voice is honestly perfect when I imagine how Shinju speaks in this AU!

--

Feng’s Voice-Claim: Kevin Michael Richardson

(Primarily his role as Captain Gantu from Lilo & Stitch)

Gantu clips: (X)

Fun fact: I genuinely tried to find a proper Cantonese actor that sounded close enough, but goddamnit- It’s hard finding voices with that distinct gravelly baritone I always imagine Feng talking in.

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Tamara’s Voice-Claim: Angela Bassett

Audio Sample Compilation (it’s the same VC as she has in the Oddworld!AU and in the “Mainverse”): (X)

Singing Sample: (X)

Same Voice-Claim for the most part, except I’m deciding Tamara won’t need a designated singing VC like her other AU counterparts.

--

Luka’s Voice-Claim: Michael Fassbender

English and German Sample: (X)

French Speaking Sample: (X)

UUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHH- This one gave me a lot of hell.  So, as much as Luka is fluent in Cantonese in this AU, he’s a primarily English speaker with his native language being German, his secondary being French, and him being able to do decent Spanish.  I was also VERY picky about how the voices sounded because Luka, in my mind, sounds a little more higher-pitched and gentle in a way.  

Fun fact: I was originally going to go with Timothée Chalamet because his English and French give me more Luka vibes, but I think it’s mainly because of how much of a hilarious dork the dude is.

--

Lee’s Voice-Claim: Harry Shum Jr. (Speaking), Li Yugang (Opera/Singing)

English and Cantonese Sample: (X)

Opera/Singing (Decided to go with this vid since he sings both is his regular male voice, and the one he uses for his Dan roles): (X)

Li Yugang also played as Consort Yu in his performance of Farewell My Concubine here: (X) Li Yugang appears at the 2:28 mark.

I think the only problem I ran into was getting super specific on trying to find Cantonese Opera actors who performed Dan roles, which seemed to leave me with nothing, or just circling around back to Peking Opera or general Chinese Opera as a whole. QQ

Fun Fact: I was originally going to just go with the usual VC I have for him (Aurelio Voltaire), but because of the setting the AU takes please (it being more historical) and given his career as a Chinese Opera performer, I had to really dig for this one.  I would have gone with the famous Mei Lanfang, but it was even more difficult to find good samples for my notes.  That being said, I at least found a pretty good clip of Mei Lanfang both singing and speaking in a Dan role: (X)

[thorniest-rose]

you have one of the most imaculate taste for movies that I've ever seen

give me your top 3 please ♡

Ah omg that's very sweet, thank you!! I keep meaning to make a Letterboxd so I can share lists on her. So I've had a think about this and here are three of my all-time favourite films, though these only skim the surface as I have so many favourites. But there's something so special about each of these, and they're ones that always come to mind when people ask me about my favourite films.

1. In the Mood for Love

I don't think I've ever watched a film that’s more beautiful than this. It's set in Hong Kong and is about a man and a woman who meet when they find out that their spouses are having an affair with each other. They start to meet out of loneliness and as a way to unravel why their spouses would cheat on them, but then a connection sparks between them and they start to fall in love. It's such a perfect portrait of hurt and yearning and it's so beautifully shot, plus it features these really quiet performances where everything brims stormily just beneath the surface. Oh and every dress Maggie Cheung wears is STUNNING, she's such a vision in it.

2. Black Narcissus

Black Narcissus is an old film but it was groundbreaking when it came out, both for its cinematography and its exploration of female desire. It was directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who also directed another one of my favourite films called The Red Shoes, and it’s about a group of nuns who move to the Himalayas to open a school and a hospital for the local people, but the isolation of living in the mountains and the sexual repression starts to divide them and drive them mad. It’s incredible, like don’t look at it and think, oh it's just a boring old film about nuns because it’s the opposite. It’s dreamy, intense, haunting, and features such a frightening performance from the actor who plays Sister Ruth!

3. Cat People (1942)

So I love horror, especially older horror films where there weren’t any special effects and filmmakers had to rely upon storytelling and performances to frighten people. And Cat People is one of the oldest examples of this. It bugs me because it used to be dismissed as a b-movie, but there’s something really melancholy and delicate about it, it almost feels like a fairytale. It’s about this young European woman living in New York and she meets and falls in love with this man, but it’s heavily implied throughout the film that she can’t let herself feel anger or lust, or else she’ll transform into a man-eating panther and kill her husband. And that sounds a bit ridiculous, but it was really exploring how female sexuality was so demonised at the time and the pressures women felt to fit into the traditional role of wife. There was a bad schlocky remake made in the 80s, but definitely watch this one instead!

[letterboxd]

Filmmaker Five: Julius Onah

“This was the film there was no turning back from. It’s the reason I’m making films today.“ —Julius Onah shares the five movies that made him want to be a filmmaker.

Nigerian-American 36-year-old producer and director Julius Onah (twin brother of director Anthony Onah) tackles the multitudes of identity in his new film Luce, a complex psychological drama starring Kelvin Harrison Jr. as a former Eritrean child soldier adopted by white liberal Americans (Naomi Watts and Tim Roth), who is confronted by his teacher (Octavia Spencer) after she discovers a concerning essay on political violence in his locker.

The film premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival to warm praise. Letterboxd member BrandonHabes describes it as a “smart, sophisticated examination of identity and racial stereotyping, a film that pivots on deception and drips with rich ambiguity”. “Bold, daring, gripping, and tense while being performed and staged within an inch of its life” raves Jeff Stewart, while fellow Sundance attendee Ryan hopes that the film “will change how people watch movies”.

Onah interned for his professor Spike Lee while studying for his Masters in Fine Arts at NYU. Lee later signed on as executive producer for Onah’s 2015 debut film and thesis piece The Girl is in Trouble. Onah was then tapped by J.J. Abrams to direct God Particle, later known as The Cloverfield Paradox, which infamously dropped a few hours after its announcement at the 2018 Super Bowl. (We covered the stats of that night here.)

We asked Onah to take us on a journey of movie discovery. In naming these five films, he outlines why they stand head-and-shoulders above others in influencing his career as a filmmaker. See the list on Letterboxd or read on for more. (The films are in no particular order.)

Three Colours: Blue (1993) Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski

Blue was the one. I still remember watching it by myself alone on a Friday night at the age of twelve on TV. I didn’t know films like this existed. The opening car crash. Juliette Binoche’s face. The incredible camera work by Slawomir Idziak. The majestic score from Zbigniew Preisner. And the way Krzysztof Kieslowski brings it all together to explore grief and renewal in the context of a Europe redefining itself as well. This was the film there was no turning back from. It’s the reason I’m making films today.

Do The Right Thing (1989) Directed by Spike Lee

I was also only about twelve when I first saw Do the Right Thing. The only other Spike Lee I’d seen before it was Malcolm X. It was soon after I moved to America. I loved X, but Do the Right Thing got seared into my mind. The colors and textures of Ernest Dickerson’s photography. Bill Lee’s vibrant score. Every. Single. Performance. And of course the powerful ending Spike crafted. The questions it asked of all of us are ones America is still struggling to answer.

Secrets & Lies (1996) Directed by Mike Leigh

I’ll never forget Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s face in this movie. Or Brenda Blethyn’s as well. At the age of thirteen, it was one of the first times I saw a movie where people actually felt like… people. The simplicity of the storytelling was the reason it was able to resonate with so much complexity. Yet Dick Pope’s photography was still richly cinematic. This was my first Mike Leigh movie. It made me want to seek out everything he did.

A Clockwork Orange (1971) Directed by Stanley Kubrick

The Shining was my first Kubrick movie, but it took revisiting years afterwards to full comprehend its achievement. But A Clockwork Orange landed on the first bounce when I saw it at fourteen. From the pull-back from Alex’s face in the Korova Milk Bar to the final slow-motion fantasy shot of him, I was hooked by the ruthless intelligence, satirical wit and moral complexity of what Kubrick was exploring by way of Anthony Burgess’ novel. That and of course Wendy Carlos’ absolutely groundbreaking score.

In The Mood for Love (2000) Directed by Wong Kar-Wai

I don’t know how many times I’ve watched this film. Days of Being Wild is probably my favorite WKW. But this was the one that helped cement the passion to pursue filmmaking when I was seventeen. The grace and subtlety of the story. The way it operates as a memory play that still feels like a present-tense story that isn’t just drowned in nostalgia. The perfect harmony of William Chang’s editing, production and costume design and the image-making of Mark Lee Ping-Bing and Christopher Doyle. It’s so rare to see a movie where every single element of the filmmaking is so in sync and all in service of the incredible performances by Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung.

Distributed by Neon, ‘Luce’ is in US cinemas now. Portrait by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP, from left: Octavia Spencer, Tim Roth, Julius Onah, Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Naomi Watts.

[huttson-blog]

Remember when Maggie Cheung enraptured audiences with her colorful cheongsams? — CNN

Read more at CNN

— by Jessica Rapp: Director Wong Kar-Wai’s 2000 movie “In the Mood for Love” is a slow-burning, claustrophobic and visually stunning tale of illicit romance. The film, which premiered at Cannes 20 years ago today, is lauded for its tight plot, pitch-perfect score, lush cinematography and award-winning performances…

Image courtesy of Block 2 Productions

[knowinng]

Remember when Maggie Cheung enraptured audiences with her colorful cheongsams?

Director Wong Kar-Wai's 2000 movie "In the Mood for Love" is a slow-burning, claustrophobic and visually stunning tale of illicit romance. The film, which premiered at Cannes 20 years ago today, is lauded for its tight plot, pitch-perfect score, lush cinematography and award-winning performances. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8204427 https://ift.tt/2zRJcXK via IFTTT

[dizzedcom]

Remember when Maggie Cheung enraptured audiences with her colorful cheongsams?

Remember when Maggie Cheung enraptured audiences with her colorful cheongsams?

Director Wong Kar-Wai’s 2000 movie “In the Mood for Love” is a slow-burning, claustrophobic and visually stunning tale of illicit romance. The film, which premiered at Cannes 20 years ago today, is lauded for its tight plot, pitch-perfect score, lush cinematography and award-winning performances.

[mrmichaelchadler]

The Ten Best Films of 2018

As one of our greatest poets once sang, the times they are a-changin'. While certain film institutions seem intent on defying the incurrence of streaming cinema, Netflix had their best year to date, releasing three of what we consider the greatest movies of 2018, and landing the top two spots. How this will impact moviemaking going forward isn’t clear yet, but it almost certainly will. Once again, our list is a wonderful blend of new voices like those of Boots Riley and Sandi Tan, alongside that of established veterans like Spike Lee and Alfonso Cuarón. We chose films from around the world this year, including entries from Korea, Poland, Mexico, and an anthology about the Old West. From documentary to comedy, drama to Western, Paul Schrader to James Baldwin—this may be our most diverse list to date, indicating the breadth of great art we saw in 2018. 

About the rankings: We asked our regular film critics and assistant editors to submit top ten lists from this great year, and then consolidated them with a traditional points system—10 points for #1, 9 points for #2, etc.—resulting in the list below, with a new entry for each awarded film. We’ll publish each critic’s individual list as the week goes on. Come back for more.

10. “Cold War”

Inside the Iron Curtain of the 1950s, a rising composer named Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) and his producer, Irena (Agata Kulesza), scour the Polish countrysides and mountaintops for folk songs to bring back to Soviet bloc cities. While auditioning peasant singers to perform these folk numbers on tour, Wiktor’s eyes meet those of a confident and mysterious blond, Zula (Joanna Kulig). He’s quickly taken with her bold presence, and she soon follows his lead into a tempestuous relationship that will stretch years, borders and other partners. 

There may only be a handful of times in life you lock eyes with someone like Wiktor and Zula do in Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Cold War.” You remember where you two met in that moment, what that person wore, who else was there and how you hung on their every word as you tried to hide how intensely you both looked at each other. Some details of the day fade, others grow sharper as you replay the scene over and over—even if that person is no longer in your life. 

Beyond its lovestruck appeal, the gorgeous black-and-white cinematography of “Cold War” enchants viewers with dazzling compositions, bringing intimate moments to an epic scale. Almost every note of the movie’s eclectic soundtrack—which ranges from forlorn Polish folk tunes to sultry French jazz—aches as much as the lovers’ wistful stares. They are echoes of the way Humphrey Bogart looked at Ingrid Bergman in “Casablanca,” how Omar Sharif looked at Julie Christie in “Doctor Zhivago” and the glances Maggie Cheung gave Tony Leung during “In the Mood for Love.” 

Under the lens of an unromantic reality, it’s possible to view these two lovers as mere hopeless mismatches. But in Pawlikowski’s film, there is a tragic beauty in Wiktor and Zula’s doomed-to-fail love. "Cold War" sympathizes with those who know it is a blessing and a curse to have feelings outlive an affair. (Monica Castillo)

9. “Burning”

Cats. Wells. Borders. Victims. Killers. There is a lot that’s indistinct and even invisible in the discomforting thriller “Burning” from South Korean director Lee Chang-dong. Loosely based on Barn Burning, a short story by Haruki Murakami, “Burning” rises from the ashes of unspoken battles and deeply held grudges between friends, genders and those that dwell on the opposite sides of the socio-economic tracks so casually that you wonder for a while where this devious suspense, co-written by Lee and Jungmi Oh, might take you. Trust me when I say, it will neither escort you somewhere commonplace nor answer your burning questions like an ordinary movie would—this elegantly calibrated chiller led by a pitch-perfect ensemble is more about the search amid blurring boundaries than reaching an orderly conclusion.

It all begins by a chance encounter that unfolds as uneventfully as any pivotal occurrence that would follow it. Working as a promo rep handing out raffle tickets, the young, bouncy Hae-mi (Jong-seo Jeon) spots and greets the aspiring writer Jong-su (Ah-In Yoo), a guy she knew from childhood. He doesn’t remember her, so she randomly mentions she’s had plastic surgery for beauty. Boyish to an extreme, awkward and clearly taken by Hae-mi, Jong-su follows her into her tiny rental room where the two have sex after Hae-mi (again, abruptly) reminds him he once called her ugly. Taking care of his burdened father’s farm close to the North Korea border, Jong-su finds his bliss cut short when Hae-mi leaves for an overseas trip, asks him to feed her cat Boil in her absence and comes back with the handsome, wealthy and enigmatic Ben (Steven Yeun) who seems to be everything Jong-su is not. Ben lives in an expensive apartment, drives a Porsche and (to Jong-su’s intense distaste) listens to music while cooking pasta.

A virtuoso of slow-burns (“Secret Sunshine” and “Poetry” among them), Lee Chang-dong patiently folds in mysteries as well as themes around gender and social class into “Burning,” while occasionally playing up a comedic tone that strengthens the unclassifiable nature of the film. Is the arsonist womanizer Ben a version of Patrick Bateman driven to insanity by capitalism? Does Hae-mi really have a cat or is she settling scores with the boy who was once cruel to her? Does Jong-su suffer from an overambitious writer’s imagination or is Ben’s uncanny smile really as condescending as it looks? When Jong-su acts upon his justified instincts on a bitterly cold, snow-covered day, you will inhale the frosty air with shivers down your spine, feeling only certain that “Burning” is one of those all-timers that begs to be re-watched repeatedly; a true one-of-a-kind with a lot on its mind. And Steven Yeun? His dismissive yawning is the stuff of (alleged) villains for the ages. (Tomris Laffly)

8. “BlacKkKlansman”

Every scene in “BlacKkKlansman” is practically watermarked with “A Spike Lee Joint” in the bottom right corner. This true story is the perfect vehicle for Lee's penchant for hilariously pitch black humor and it also allows him to settle an old score. Taking Godard’s advice about using a new movie to criticize another movie, Lee aims squarely at D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation,” ridiculing it relentlessly wherever appropriate. Not only does the film appear as a snarky punchline during a Klan rally, Lee also uses Griffith’s own devices against him by structuring Ron Stallworth’s last reel race against time as a thrilling, Klan-centric montage that serves as a corrective to Griffith’s racist imagery. This sequence deviates from the real-life story Lee is telling, so it was deemed controversial. Surely Lee relished the thought of this perception. Because when Griffith dabbled in propaganda, it was “history written with lightning.” When Lee mocked that dabbling, it was heresy written with politics. And it was just as effective!

John David Washington and Adam Driver give stellar performances, though the latter is surprisingly the film’s biggest proponent of identity introspection. While Washington hides his identity behind a telephone and a voice, Driver hides his in plain sight, thereby incurring more collateral damage. And though the plot comments on racism and anti-Semitism, Lee builds a reality-based trap door into his cinematic contraption, one that opens as soon as he invokes his trademark people mover shot. Suddenly, we’re thrust into the terrifying, present day fate that befell Heather Heyer, whose appearance at the Charlottesville protest ended with her death. This real-life footage is a provocation, but it’s one bursting with truth about the state of racism in America and is therefore not exploitative. Lee dedicated “BlacKkKlansman” to Heyer, and the film’s rise in the award season coincides with the recent guilty verdict delivered to the man who killed her. This is one of Lee's most urgent and timely films. It's also one of his best. (Odie Henderson)

7. “Annihilation”

In 2018, Stanley Kubrick’s landmark science fiction film “2001: A Space Odyssey” turned 50. That same year, writer-director Alex Garland released “Annihilation,” a rare film that lives up to the totality of what made “2001” so revered and valuable, rather than merely imitating certain aspects of its design, structure, or tone. It’s one of the great science fiction films of recent years, easily the equal of “Ex Machina,” “Arrival,” “Under the Skin” and “Blade Runner 2049,” and superior to all of them (except “Under the Skin”) in one respect: it encourages multiple interpretations and deeply personal responses, while waving off any attempt to simplistically “explain” what the audience has seen. Adapted from the first of Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach novels, the movie structured as a series of discrete set pieces, complete with Kubrickian chapter titles (a la “The Shining” as well as “2001”). If you watch it more than once—as you should; it deepens with every viewing—you start to see it as a set of thought prompts rather than a traditional narrative, though one that’s anchored to strong, simple characterizations and full performances.

The heroine is Army soldier turned biologist Lena (Natalie Portman), whose husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) went missing for a year during a top secret mission, then briefly, miraculously returned to her shortly before puking up blood and being rushed to the intensive care unit at a top secret research facility in a swamp near the Florida coastline. The area was impacted by a meteor that created a “Shimmer”—a demarcated zone where the rules of evolution seem to have gone haywire, integrating the DNA of plants, mammals and reptiles that were thought incompatible, and killing off all the members of expeditions sent to explore the place (Kane is the only survivor, though we immediately sense that the person returned from the Shimmer isn’t actually Kane). Lena joins up with four other women—Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez), Radek (Tessa Thompson), and Sheppard (Tuva Novotny)—to journey into the Shimmer and attempt to understand it.

But there are limits to understanding, and the key to the excellence of Garland’s film is its determination to pose questions without supplying answers. I hosted a screening of the film back in March—my third viewing—and discussed it with the audience afterward, and together we came up with at least nine different answers to the question, “What is this movie about?”

It’s possible to piece together what happened, event-wise, to everyone in the expedition, and how one event might’ve led to another, culminating in the finale, an audacious two-character confrontation that feels like a cross between a modern dance performance and a spectral assault. But once you’ve done that, you’re still left with the question of what it all meant, and you’re on your own. Which is as it should be, because in life, you’re on your own, too. (Matt Zoller Seitz)

6. “Shirkers”

One indication of why this is a near-great film: although it is a relatively straightforward and coherent narrative account—albeit one so surprising as to be, weirdly, equally exhilarating as it is upsetting—almost everyone who watches it has a different idea of its theme. Is it about toxic males holding women down? The challenges facing a female artist? The difficulty of making art in Singapore?

Sandi Tan’s documentary memoir/detective story cannily maintains a core pose of modesty while insinuatingly exploring a series of big ideas. Serving as her own narrator, Tan tells of her 1990s time as an artistically ambitious teen in Singapore, under the spell of maverick filmmakers like David Lynch and believing she had found a cinematic partner in crime with an older man from the States, a teacher and self-styled would-be auteur named Georges Cardona. Sandi forges alliances with the smaller-than-a-handful number of like-minded conspirators on her not-yet-economically-booming island to make her film. A film that Cardona absconds with, leaving behind no explanation or apology.

The rediscovery of the footage in 2010 made this movie possible. But it didn’t determine this movie’s power. Even if it took Tan several decades to realize it, “Shirkers” proves her a born moviemaker. (Glenn Kenny)

5. “If Beale Street Could Talk”

When I interviewed writer/director Barry Jenkins about “Moonlight,” we talked about the movie’s haunting score, composed by Nicholas Britell. “Many directors would use songs of the era to place the audience in the film’s three time periods,” I said. “Two things,” he replied. “First, we could not afford the rights to those songs. But more important, I believe these characters deserve a full orchestral score.”

I thought of those words as I watched Jenkins’ latest film, “If Beale Street Could Talk,” based on the 1974 novel by James Baldwin. Or, I should say, it did not feel like I was watching the film. It was more like I was immersed in it. The entire theme of the movie could be, “These characters deserve a full orchestral score” along with the highest level of every other creative and aesthetic element available to a filmmaker, from Baldwin’s lyrical words to the luscious cinematography of “Moonlight’s” James Laxton, another gorgeous score by Britell, and performances of infinite sensitivity and humanity.

“If Beale Street Could Talk” succeeds brilliantly at one of cinema’s most central functions: a love story with sizzling chemistry between two impossibly beautiful people. Stephan James (“Race”) and newcomer KiKi Layne are 2018’s most compelling romantic couple. Their relationship is in every way the heart of this story, the reason we feel so sharply about the injustice that befalls James' Fonny, the film's most undeniable signifier of generations of institutional racism. We see that most powerfully when Regina King, as the girl’s mother, looks in the mirror as she prepares like a matador entering the bullring for a meeting that could make all the difference for the couple. She cannot expect much, but she has to try. Throughout the movie, there is resignation and there are diminished hopes but there is also resilience. And “Beale Street” reminds us that there is also undiminished and imperishable love: romantic love, the love of parents and siblings, even an unexpected encounter with a warmhearted landlord. There is the love Baldwin and Jenkins have for these characters. And, most of all, it reminds us that this is a story that deserves to be told with the best that movies have to offer, including a full orchestral score. (Nell Minow)

4. “First Reformed”

Ethan Hawke just gets better with age, as he casts aside the boyish good looks and swaggering sense of rebellion that made him both a superstar and an indie darling in the 1990s for more mature, fascinatingly flawed characters. He's well into his 40s now and letting the passage of time show on his face, in his demeanor and in the complicated men he's choosing to play on screen. In Paul Schrader, Hawke is ideally matched with a filmmaker whose own work has only grown deeper and more resonant over the past several decades. "First Reformed" feels like a culmination of sorts for both the writer/director and his star. It has echoes of past efforts from both while it also wrestles with bracingly contemporary themes of personal responsibility, stewardship and activism. 

Hawke stars as Reverend Ernst Toller, a country priest in upstate New York whose involvement in the lives of a married couple in his congregation steadily causes him to lose his grip. With heavy shades of the iconic character he created in Travis Bickle, Schrader vividly presents a man who's grappling with reality and his perceived role within it. He says so much within the film's quiet stillness and precise austerity as well as with masterful narration that offers a glaring contrast between Toller's journals and the truth. "First Reformed" represents the best work of Hawke's lengthy and eclectic career, and it's a welcome return to form for the veteran Schrader. But it also allows Amanda Seyfried to show a dramatic depth we haven't seen from her before as the woman who could be Toller's salvation or his undoing. That sense of ambiguity only becomes more gripping as the film progresses, leading to an ending that's boldly open for interpretation but is undeniably daring and haunting. (Christy Lemire)

3. “Sorry to Bother You”

Like many good dark comedies (ex: "Office Space," "Bamboozled") the hysterically caustic "Sorry to Bother You" feels like a full-blown panic attack. The film's class conscious anxiety (and mordant sense of optimism) is also contagious, as it is in movies like "Starship Troopers" and "Putney Swope." 

With "Sorry to Bother You," writer/director Boots Riley takes credible, if pointedly exaggerated sources of social, racial, and economic tension and exaggerates them beyond the realm of our known experiences. At the same time: Riley's thrillingly inventive conception of the rise-fall-rise-fall-and-rise-again character arc of call center worker drone Cassius "Cash" Green (an incredible Lakeith Stanfield) always feels real enough, even when it takes a hard turn into (what is currently) the realm of science-fiction.

In that sense: "Sorry to Bother You" is also a great American social critique (ex: "A Face in the Crowd," "Idiocracy") since it teaches viewers how to watch it. Riley handily realizes Francois Truffaut's goal of introducing four ideas per minute—and they're each fully-realized and easily understood. That's a major talent when your film essentially weaponizes audience surrogate Cash's relatability. We grow more and more aware of the unbearable heaviness of Cash's existence as a young, black, and talented man. First he stops thinking of himself as a barnacle on an unfathomable ship of industry and starts to see himself as a major player. Then he stops letting himself be seduced by the trappings of his newfound financial success and starts to focus on the application of his talents. Finally, Cash stops fooling himself into thinking that he's just a messenger of utilitarian progress and becomes a victim of his own self-deluded progress. But by then it's too late.

Or not. It's late, but it ain't never. (Simon Abrams)

2. “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”

Like so much of the best work of Joel & Ethan Coen, their latest film is a tough one to describe. On the surface, it’s an old-fashioned anthology piece, a reworking of what was once an idea for a TV series into a collection of Old West vignettes, playing out like a storybook. But that sells it short. It sells short how each narrative feels like it flows into the next. It sells the short the mastery of tone both within each individual story and tying together the overall piece. It sells short the way the Coens intertwine their vision of the Old West with a dissection on the very practice of storytelling and their roles as beloved storytellers themselves. And it sells short the incredible individual pleasures within each of the six short films, all of them bursting with gorgeous cinematography, memorable performances, and fascinating subtext. It’s the best western in years because it’s both completely knowledgeable about the tropes of the genre and able to subvert them at the same time.

Take the opening short, the one that gives the film its name. A singing cowboy plods through the desert, warbling a tune to the rhythm of his horse’s footsteps. He speaks directly to the camera, showing us that he’s been labeled a misanthrope—a title that has been incorrectly applied to the Coens’ dark sense of humor on more than one occasion. This leads one to presume that what follows is designed to defy or subvert that label. But that’s not really what happens. “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” is constantly going left when you expect it to go right—and then making you feel dumb for thinking it would ever go right.

It’s also a fascinating dissection of death—from enemies, former friends, and even by one’s own hand. Death comes for everyone. It’s a theme woven through all six vignettes, and it’s telling that the final piece is about a pair of men who distract their targets with stories. If filmmakers have ever put themselves on screen more bluntly, I can’t think of when. While the story is unfolding, there’s something else happening underneath or off to the side. Joel and Ethan Coen are two of our most impressive cinematic magicians. You’re so carefully enjoying what one hand does that you don’t realize how much they’re doing with the other one until it's over. And then you just want to watch it all over again. (Brian Tallerico)

1. “Roma”

Alfonso Cuarón's "Roma" takes place in the Mexico City neighborhood where he grew up in the 1970s. Filmed in vivid black-and-white (Cuarón shot it himself), "Roma" features long long takes, the camera moving horizontally through a house, across fields, into the sea, down city streets, creating a sense of reality so intense it almost tips over into dream. The film's central figure is Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a Mixtec woman working for an upper-class family as a nanny and a maid (she is based on the woman who raised Cuarón). Surrounding Cleo is a world of political upheaval, seething student protests, marital strife, economic stresses, and cops in riot gear. In another film, these events would be center stage, but in "Roma," they drift in the background, seen through windows, heard through open doors, as Cleo strolls by, or around, trying to manage her own life, enduring stress and doing her best. "Roma" is pierced with issues of class, privilege, ethnicity, and resurrects a time and place, a whole era, with details that sometimes overwhelm, like a wave roaring into shore. Swarms of extras live out their lives in complicated vignettes unfurling behind the action, seen briefly as the camera moves by, gone in a flash. The city, the house, the village, all bristle with life. This is a very personal film for Cuarón, and "Roma" is both a determined act of memory and a work of powerful tribute. (Sheila O’Malley)

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