After a while of watching mainstream, independent, and art-house films, one of the most pleasant things is being genuinely surprised by a film when it turns out to be more than you expected in ways you didn’t see coming. Without spoiling that sense of discovery for others, Chilean writer-director Sebastián Silva’s latest film Nasty Baby […]

Mexican director Patricia Riggen’s drama The 33 tells the story of the 33 men trapped 2,300 feet underground for 69 days in 2010 following a cave-in at the gold mine they were working in the Atacama Desert near Copiapó, Chile. The men survived for 17 days on nearly non-existent food rations before being found by […]

In recent years I’ve often used the term “spectacle” as a critical slur when it comes to CGI scenery over substance. But there’s reason I get on my soapbox about moviegoers’ increasing addiction to grand cinematic (usually CGI) imagery, and it’s not just because a growing number of popular films spend so much time and […]