Here’s a look at the tightest race this awards season.

 

 

Meticulous and without soundtrack, After Lucia is cold, eerie, and stunning.

 

 

About ten minutes into Michael, you realize that there is no angel from Saturday Night Fever coming to shatter the innocent veneer or heavenly ideology. The protagonist of Markus Schleinzer’s Michael is a quiet insurance salesman. He smokes like our aforementioned angel, has a beer over dinner, but aside from the ten-year-old boy he keeps locked in […]

 

 

Valentine’s Day has come and gone. Those waiting for that break-up prohibition to expire can now submit as many pink slips as you wish. And, if you’re looking to drown your sorrows or start life anew, your best best this week will be to check out Undefeated. If you’re just looking to get depressed, you might want to […]

 

 

While it falls behind Funny Games, The Piano Teacher, Cache, and The White Ribbon, Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf is certainly worth a look in that it is a phenomenal exercise in lighting as well as a rather novel take on apocalypse-film genre. Characteristically, Haneke shoots this 2003 film with meticulous precision and strands the viewer […]

 

 

Austrian director Michael Haneke might be one of the most provocative working in the film industry today.  I’ve shied away from using the term “Hollywood” because there is nothing in Hollywood that resembles the patience exhibited my Haneke—much less the pleasure taken in keeping an audience on pins and needles, forever hinting that a boogey man will […]