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4 weeks ago | 
washingtoncitypaper.com | Alan Zilberman
Thanks for being a member of City Paper! Though the first several minutes of Sister Midnight unfold without dialogue, they communicate a great deal. We learn a lot about the young newlyweds, and their small single-room apartment in Mumbai, India. Their union seems like a traditional arrangement, so when the characters speak, the woman’s deadpan vulgarity is a slight shock. That’s part of the film’s consistent charm—you never quite know what to expect.
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1 month ago | 
spectrumculture.com | Alan Zilberman
In interviews, the Australian film directors Danny and Michael Philippou seem like sweet guys. They enthusiastically discuss their projects, describing the genial mood they maintain on set. Perhaps such a positive attitude is necessary in their promotional material because their films can be so harrowing. There were walkouts throughout the brief runtime of their debut, Talk to Me, as if the directors systematically searched for buttons to push or lines to cross.
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1 month ago | 
washingtoncitypaper.com | Alan Zilberman |Serena Zets |Pat Padua |Louis Jacobson |Hannah Docter-Loeb
Thanks for being a member of City Paper! There is more to Spanish cinema than Pedro Almodóvar. We can’t deny that the director is a master of the form, but there are plenty of treasures beyond his prolific output. Co-sponsored by the Embassy of Spain and AFI Silver, the mini-festival Spanish Cinema Now! includes provocative films across many genres—without input from the beloved auteur.
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1 month ago | 
spectrumculture.com | Alan Zilberman
Even without taking its generic title into account, the new Norwegian drama Love is a tough sell. Director and writer Dag Johan Haugerud creates dramatic situations about fundamentally decent people, and while there are some big emotions, these characters are weary and understated. No one raises their voice, and if there is agitation in a dialogue scene, it never lasts long. Why, then, is Love so compelling?
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1 month ago | 
spectrumculture.com | Alan Zilberman
Economical thrillers are a reliable, easy way for a director to find suspense in a cramped setting. The genre got its start with Rio Bravo, a Western that revolutionized the siege movie, and since then, countless directors have used limited space to their advantage. Das Boot is a masterpiece of on-screen claustrophobia, while Panic Room unfolds like a deadly chess game.
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1 month ago | 
washingtoncitypaper.com | Alan Zilberman
Thanks for being a member of City Paper! It does not take long to decide whether you’ll enjoy Tim Robinson’s unique brand of comedy. As demonstrated in his sketch series I Think You Should Leave and his short-lived sitcom Detroiters, Robinson has become an avatar of unhinged desperation, which helps explain why so many of his sketches have become memes. His detractors, however, can’t stand his profanity-laden tirades.
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1 month ago | 
spectrumculture.com | Alan Zilberman
Most dinner parties are not stressful, and yet you would never know that by watching movies set during them. The dynamics between the hosts and guests are always fraught, with ugly secrets or resentments bubbling to the surface. It is impossible to forget the battle of wills between George and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and you can see echoes of that dynamic in Black Bag, a recent spy thriller bookended by two surprisingly intense dinner parties.
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2 months ago | 
spectrumculture.com | Alan Zilberman
It has been nearly nine years since The Accountant, a middling action thriller starring Ben Affleck as a deadly assassin with autism. So much has happened since then, including evolving public perception toward autism, that the arrival of the sequel The Accountant 2 is curious or maybe ill-advised. Why do we need to see more of Affleck’s character, a cross between John Wick and Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, when the original film already humanized its deadly hero?
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2 months ago | 
spectrumculture.com | Alan Zilberman
The great artists who steal have the wherewithal to obscure their influences or at least tweak them slightly. Sinners, another horror film that opened this week, must list From Dusk Till Dawn as a clear inspiration, since both mix a vampire with a Rio Bravo-style siege picture. The influence is not overt, although it is hiding in plain sight, so Sinners rewards viewers who have a knowledge of film history and a talent for pattern recognition.
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2 months ago | 
spectrumculture.com | Alan Zilberman
When Alex Garland ended Civil War with a dramatic siege of the White House, he relied on Ray Mendoza to get a sense of how the actors portraying it should move. He stepped back, and let the choreography dictate where he would place the camera. Mendoza is a decorated veteran who works as a Hollywood consultant, and his work heightened Garland’s authenticity. That same sense of collaboration and trust informs Warfare, a new combat film where Mendoza now serves as co-director with Garland.
