Mark Asch

1 month ago | bfi.org.uk | Bedatri D. Choudhury |David West |Mark Asch |Arjun Sajip

Sandhya Suri’s ambitious debut tells the story of a young Hindu widow who takes on her late husband’s constable job and is thrown into the violent world of Indian law enforcement. 19 March 2025Midway through Sandhya Suri’s Santosh, the eponymous protagonist, a police officer (Shahana Goswami), sits in a restaurant in a central-northern Indian town, eating a plate of red bean curry with fried bread. As the only woman, she feels the sting of male eyes on her.

1 month ago | bfi.org.uk | David WestReviews |David West |Mark Asch |Arjun Sajip

A mega-hit in China, the sequel to 2019’s NE ZHA demolished box office records to become the highest grossing animated feature film ever made. However, it presents a potentially challenging prospect for audiences not versed in Chinese mythology or anyone who hasn’t seen the opening instalment.  Director Jiao Zi, aka Yu Yang, picks up where the first movie left off as pint-sized demon-child hero Ne Zha and his pal, dragon prince Ao Bing, are resurrected by Ne Zha’s master, the portly Taoist Taiyi.

2 months ago | bfi.org.uk | Mark AschReviews |Mark Asch |Arjun Sajip |Anton Bitel

“One of the greatest compliments I ever got (well, it seemed like a compliment to me, anyway) was when Mr. Spielberg told me I’d missed my era as a screenwriter – that I would have had a ball in the 40s,” David Koepp once told the film scholar David Bordwell. He’s found the next best thing writing scripts directed by modern workflow gurus like David Fincher, and now the one-man studio Steven Soderbergh.

Dec 5, 2024 | mubi.com | Mark Asch

The closeted right-wing operative has become a tragic character in the American repertory. The Apprentice (2024), released to theaters just in time to herald Donald Trump’s reelection to the American presidency, emerges from the same impulse that has motivated much national news coverage of Trump since the 2016 presidential campaign.

Dec 2, 2024 | filmcomment.com | Mark Asch

This article appeared in the November 27, 2024 edition of The Film Comment Letter, our free weekly newsletter featuring original film criticism and writing. Sign up for the Letter here. Bitterroot (Vera Brunner-Sung, 2024)My first-ever piece for Film Comment was a report from the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2010, the year that Lena Dunham’s Tiny Furniture premiered there.