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While she has dropped world premieres at Sundance and Venice (plus Telluride), Kelly Reichardt has been flirting with Cannes on three occasions total (plus when she was feted by the Quinzaine folks with the Carrosse d’Or award). It began with 2008’s Un Certain Regard selected Wendy and Lucy, and she would shore up in the comp with Showing Up (read our ★★★½ review) in 2002 and now returns almost at the end of the fest once again with The Mastermind – which on paper appears to be here most promising acquisitions title in some bit. The American independent cinema stalwart was instantly admired for River of Grass and Old Joy, with some of her best work coming from Meek’s Cutoff, Certain Women (read our ★★★★½ review) and First Cow (read our ★★★½ review).…...

Exclusive: Here’s your first footage of Josh O’Connor in Cannes Competition film The Mastermind, which launches at the festival tomorrow.

Alana Haim (Licorice Pizza) also stars in Kelly Reichardt’s movie, which is set in a sedate corner of Massachusetts circa 1970. The film follows Jb Mooney (Josh O’Connor), an unemployed carpenter turned amateur art thief, who plans his first big heist. When things go haywire, his life unravels.

Also starring are John Magaro, Hope Davis, Bill Camp, Gaby Hoffmann, Amanda Plummer, Eli Gelb, Cole Doman, Javion Allen, Matthew Maher and Rhenzy Feliz.

Mubi will distribute in select territories, retaining rights in North America, UK, Ireland, Latam, Germany, Austria, Benelux, Turkey, and India, with The Match Factory handling international sales.

Producers on the film are Neil Kopp, Anish Savjani, and Vincent Savino of filmscience.

Filmscience has produced all of Reichardt’s films since Old Joy and this will be...

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2024 Tribeca coverage. Vulcanizadora opens in theaters on May 2.

Like the punk-rock cousin of Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy, Joel Potrykus’ Vulcanizadora also concerns a voyage in the woods that pinpoints the exact moment an old friendship abruptly dies. The film also represents a maturing-of-sorts for the Michigan-based provocateur, revisiting characters first introduced in his 2014 film Buzzard and a few themes explored in his lesser-known 2016 feature The Alchemist Cookbook. Like many artists shifting from early to mid-career, Potrykus explores themes of having a family––or, in this case, abandoning it––while still retaining the edge present in his nascent works. It suggests a conundrum of sorts, but while other indie filmmakers start small and work towards scaling-up, this filmmaker refreshingly hasn’t..

Vulcanizadora revisits the story of Marty Jackitansky (Joshua Burger) and Derek Skiba (Potrykus) as two guys that take...

It will be a challenge to find a 2025 film that Josh O’Connor is not in. The “Challengers” breakout star is leading the third “Knives Out” feature (all we know is that he’s playing a priest), plus is starring alongside Paul Mescal in “The History Of Sound” and will be in Steven Spielberg’s next project about UFOs. First, though, O’Connor is starring in Kelly Reichardt’s latest, “The Mastermind.”

The film will debut in competition at Cannes. Oliver Hermanus’ “The History Of Sound” will also be in the main competition so O’Connor has two shots at being in a Palme d’Or winner this year.

For “The Mastermind,” O’Connor plays Jb Mooney, an unemployed carpenter who becomes an aspiring amateur art thief. The only issue is that Jb’s first big heist goes haywire, leading him to confront his life choices. The film is set in rural Massachusetts in the 1970s.

Exclusive: Here are your first look images of stars Josh O’Connor (Challengers) and Alana Haim (Licorice Pizza) in Kelly Reichardt’s Cannes Competition film The Mastermind.

Set in a sedate corner of Massachusetts circa 1970, the film follows Jb Mooney (Josh O’Connor), an unemployed carpenter turned amateur art thief, who plans his first big heist. When things go haywire, his life unravels.

Also starring are John Magaro, Hope Davis, Bill Camp, Gaby Hoffmann, Amanda Plummer, Eli Gelb, Cole Doman, Javion Allen, Matthew Maher and Rhenzy Feliz.

Mubi will distribute in select territories, retaining rights in North America, UK, Ireland, Latam, Germany, Austria, Benelux, Turkey, and India, with The Match Factory handling international sales.

Producers on the film are Neil Kopp, Anish Savjani, and Vincent Savino of filmscience.

Filmscience has produced all of Reichardt’s films since Old Joy and this will be the second time Mubi has worked with Reichardt,...

The summer season is upon us and, per each year, we’ve dug beyond studio offerings to present an in-depth look at what should be on your radar. From festival winners of the past year to selections coming straight from Cannes to genre delights to, yes, a few blockbuster spectacles, there’s more than enough to anticipate.

Check out our picks below and return for monthly updates as more is sure to be added to the calendar. Release dates are for theatrical openings, unless otherwise noted.

Pavements (Alex Ross Perry; May 2)

If the Hollywood superhero-industrial complex is perishing, the Rolling Stone and Spin magazine extended universe is hastily being built. What better defines “pre-awareness” for the studios like the data logged by Spotify’s algorithm, where billions of track plays confirm what past popular music has stood the test of time, and also how––in the streaming era––you can gouge ancillary money from it?...

While the idea of independent cinema has shifted to increase bigger budgets and scopes, a filmmaker who has stayed true to his punk roots is certainly Joel Potrykus. The Buzzard and Relaxer director returned to the festival circuit last fall with Vulcanizadora, reuniting with frequent collaborator Joshua Burge for an uncategorizable film about a fracturing friendship. Now set to kick off the summer movie season with a bang, the first trailer has arrived ahead of Oscilloscope’s May 2 release beginning at NYC’s IFC Center.

Here’s the brief synopsis: “Two friends trudge through a Michigan forest with the intention of following through on a disturbing pact. Once their plan goes shockingly awry, the haunting consequences of their failure can’t stay hidden for long.”

John Fink said in his review, “Like the punk-rock cousin of Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy, Joel Potrykus’ Vulcanizadora also concerns a voyage in the...

Though we aim to discuss a wide breadth of films each year, few things give us more pleasure than the arrival of bold new voices. It’s why we venture to festivals and pore over a variety of different features that might bring to light some emerging talent. This year was an especially notable time for new directors making their stamp, and we’re highlighting the handful of 2024 debuts that most impressed us.

Below, one can check out a list spanning a variety of different genres, and many are available to stream here. In years to come, take note as these helmers (hopefully) ascend.

Allen Sunshine (Harley Chamandy)

Directed with a sense of tranquil serenity and grounded maturity one might be accustomed to finding in the work of a seasoned director, Allen Sunshine is, quite remarkably, the debut feature of 25-year-old Harley Chamandy. The Montreal-born, New York-based filmmaker received the...

Exclusive: Filmmaker Kelly Reichardt has rounded out an impressive cast for The Mastermind, her period art heist film for Mubi. Today’s nine additions include Hope Davis (Succession), Bill Camp (Joker), Gaby Hoffmann (Transparent), Amanda Plummer (Pulp Fiction), Eli Gelb (Broadway’s Stereophonic), Cole Doman (Gossip Girl), Javion Allen (Gray Matter), Matthew Maher (Air), and The Penguin breakout Rhenzy Feliz.

The actors join an ensemble led by Josh O’Connor, Alana Haim, and John Magaro. While all roles are under wraps, the film centers on an audacious art heist in New England in 1970. Production is underway and will conclude by end of year.

Known for films like First Cow and Old Joy, Reichardt is directing from her own script. Neil Kopp, Anish Savjani, and Vincent Savino are producing for filmscience, with Mubi financing the film and distributing in select territories, including North America, the UK, Ireland, Latam, Germany, Austria, Benelux, Turkey,...

Exclusive: John Magaro (Past Lives) has closed a deal to star opposite Josh O’Connor and Alana Haim in writer-director Kelly Reichardt’s next film, The Mastermind.

Magaro comes to the project after collaborating with Reichardt on her A24 films First Cow and Showing Up, having earned a Gotham Award nomination for Best Actor for his work on the former. While the new film centers on an audacious art heist amid the backdrop of the Vietnam War, there’s no word yet on the role Magaro is playing.

Neil Kopp, Anish Savjani, and Vincent Savino are producing for filmscience, with Mubi financing the film and distributing in select territories, including North America, the UK, Ireland, Latam, Germany, Austria, Benelux, Turkey, and India. UTA Independent Film Group arranged financing, and The Match Factory is handling remaining worldwide sales.

Filmscience comes to the project as a partner of Reichardt’s on all of...

Exclusive: Josh O’Connor is set to star in Kelly Reichardt’s next film The Mastermind. Reichardt will write and direct the film with production expected to start sometime this year.

The film centers on an audacious art heist amidst the backdrop of the Vietnam War.

Producers on the film are Neil Kopp, Anish Savjani, and Vincent Savino of filmscience. Mubi is financing the film and will distribute in select territories, retaining rights in North America, UK, Ireland, Latam, Germany, Austria, Benelux, Turkey, and India, with The Match Factory handling remaining worldwide sales. UTA Independent Film Group handled financing for the film.

Filmscience has produced all of Reichardt’s films since Old Joy and this will be the second time Mubi has worked with Reichardt, having acquired all rights internationally (excluding US and China) for First Cow in 2021. Mubi released First Cow theatrically in the UK and Ireland once cinemas reopened again during the pandemic,...

There may not be a movie that has more Bde (Brooklyn Dad Energy) than Good One — you’d have to go to closing time at a Park Slope bar with nothing but The National on the jukebox to find a more concentrated dose of paternal moodiness than writer-director India Donaldson’s debut. The fact that this modest, quiet drama isn’t filtered through a male perspective but that of 17-year-old young woman, who both bears witness to two middle-aged men navigating mid-life crises and sees right through their bullshit, doesn...

The best directorial debut of the year, India Donaldson’s Good One, is a carefully-observed portrait of both womanhood and fatherhood, capturing the 17-year-old Sam who embarks on a camping trip in the Catskills with her father (James Le Gros) and his best friend (Danny McCarthy). As the men are in the middle of a midlife crisis of sorts, Sam is witness to their mindless banter and subtle indecencies, culminating in a piercing point of no return.

Ahead of the film’s limited release beginning this Friday, I spoke with Donaldson about the character dynamics, the film’s subtle accumulation of details, the Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Kelly Reichardt films she watched as inspiration, and the journey from Sundance to New Directors/New Films to the Cannes Film Festival.

The Film Stage: Can you talk about how you initially formed the dynamic between these three characters? In some ways, it feels...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film Forum

Films by David Lynch, Tony Scott, David Cronenberg, and Jim Jarmusch play in “Out of the 80s,“ which includes Do the Right Thing on 35mm this Sunday; The Neverending Story plays on Sunday.

Museum of the Moving Image

Rumble in the Bronx and The Straight Story play on 35mm as part of “See It Big at the ’90s Multiplex” which also includes Boomerang and Trainspotting; an Agnieszka Holland retrospective begins; Mothra screens on Saturday.

Roxy Cinema

Altered States plays on 35mm this Friday; Saturday brings Knight of Cups; George Cukor’s It Should Happen to You plays on 16mm this Sunday.

Paris Theater

Seven, Old Joy, Come and See, and The Conformist all screen on a despair-inducing Sunday.

Metrograph

Films by Gus Van Sant and Alain Resnais play in an mk2 retrospective; retrospectives of Obayashi and Dieudo Hamadi...

For the past three years, the American Cinematheque has presented “Bleak Week,” an annual festival devoted to the greatest films ever made about the darkest side of humanity. This year, the festival will not only be unspooling in Los Angeles June 1 – 7 — with special guests including Al Pacino, Lynne Ramsay, Charlie Kaufman, and Karyn Kusama — but will travel to New York for the first time with a week of screenings at the historic Paris Theater starting June 9.

“We are honored to co-present ‘Bleak Week: New York’ in partnership with one of the most beautiful movie palaces in the world,” Cinematheque artistic director Grant Moninger told IndieWire. “This year, over 10,000 people will attend ‘Bleak Week: Year 3’ in Los Angeles, proving that audiences are hungry for such powerful and confrontational cinema. Many people thought they were alone in their desire to explore films with uncomfortable truths, but the truth is that they are part of a large community,...

For their latest retrospective, Metrograph have turned their sights towards Kelly Reichardt. Ahead of “American Landscapes: The Cinema of Kelly Reichardt” running from Saturday, May 11 to May 27, with Reichardt present for screenings the first weekend, we’re pleased to exclusively debut the series’ trailer.

Here’s the official rundown: “Since her second feature, 2006’s Old Joy, Miami-born Reichardt has staked a claim to the Pacific Northwest—Oregon in six films, with the Montana of Certain Women an outlier—that has made her name as synonymous with the region as, say, Faulkner’s is with Mississippi. The attention she pays to the specific cadences and rituals of life in the Northwest, from the Portland of Showing Up to the thinly populated southern Oregon in Night Moves, is matched by her exhaustive engagement in every aspect of her films, from screenwriting—frequently in collaboration with Jonathan Raymond—to editing, which she will...

One of the greatest discoveries at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, India Donaldson’s directorial debut Good One is also the only film this year to go on to play New Directors/New Films and the Cannes Film Festival. Picked up by Metrograph Pictures as their first major release, ahead of an August 9 debut, the first trailer has now arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “In India Donaldson’s insightful, piercing debut, 17-year-old Sam (Collias) embarks on a three-day backpacking trip in the Catskills with her dad, Chris (Le Gros) and his oldest friend, Matt (McCarthy). As the two men quickly settle into a gently quarrelsome brotherly dynamic, airing long-held grievances, Sam, wise beyond her years, attempts to mediate. But when lines are crossed and Sam’s trust is betrayed, tensions reach a fever pitch, as Sam struggles with her dad’s emotional limitations and experiences the universal moment when the parental bond is tested.

It’s been nearly two decades since Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy showed how the wilderness can be an open canvas to explore the breaking points of male friendship and reckoning with a midlife crisis. While those emotional quandaries are evergreen, it’s appropriate timing to bring an entirely new element to this conceit. India Donaldson’s carefully observed, refreshingly patient, beautifully rendered debut feature Good One shifts the perspective, concerning a 17-year-old girl who embarks on a camping trip in the Catskills with her father and his best friend. Through an accumulation of minute details and uneasy glances, the drama becomes a portrait of increasingly crossed boundaries leading to an ultimate breaking point.

What was originally envisioned as a four-person backpacking trip into the woods with Sam (Lily Collias), her father Chris (James Le Gros), his best friend Matt (Danny McCarthy), and Matt’s son Dylan quickly turns to...

As teenagers go — and let us allow for some hormonal leeway here — 17-year-old Sam is what most would call a good one: smart, thoughtful, grounded, self-sufficient but not averse to advice, the kind of kid that parents can’t help bragging about, as their friends wish their own nightmare offspring were a little more like her. But such a reputation has its downside, as elders take the teen’s compliance and good humor for granted, and expect undue allowances for their own irresponsibilities. Writer-director India Donaldson probes that awkward reversal of roles with delicacy and care in her debut feature “Good One,” monitoring the white lies and red flags that emerge over the course of a father-daughter camping weekend in upstate New York.

Premiering in the U.S. Dramatic competition at this year’s Sundance festival, “Good One” is modest but assuredly perceptive independent filmmaking that makes no grand claims...

Portland local Todd Haynes turned out at the Oregon city’s art museum in late June not to tout his own movies — and he certainly has a major one on the horizon thanks to Netflix’s Cannes pick-up “May December” — but to celebrate his peers: namely screenwriter and author Jon Raymond, longtime collaborator of Haynes’ friend Kelly Reichardt. Raymond also co-wrote with Haynes the script for his acclaimed 2011 HBO miniseries “Mildred Pierce” and developed the story for Haynes’ upcoming gay romance starring Joaquin Phoenix.

Haynes, who moved to Portland in 2000, was among speakers at the Portland Art Museum Center for an Untold Tomorrow’s (Pam Cut) Cinema Unbound Awards, which honored the likes of Raymond, Guillermo del Toro, Tessa Thompson, Jacqueline Stewart, and Portlander Fred Armisen. The lively gala was held in honor of not only raising funds for the museum — one of the largest in the country and now...

In his third feature outing with ascendant genre filmmaker Ari Aster on Beau Is Afraid, Lars Knudsen produced the duo’s most ambitious, thought-provoking and outlandish work yet — a nightmare comedy of staggeringly detailed vision that is sure to engender conversation.

A nearly-three-hour epic reuniting the pair with A24, this deeply unsettling and quite funny feature burrows into the psyche of Beau (Joaquin Phoenix), a man-child riddled with anxiety who exists in a world in which each of his worst fears is bound to come true. The film bears the framework of a Grimm’s fairy tale à la Hansel and Gretel, watching as Beau finds himself in increasingly surreal scenarios while on a journey on foot to his mother’s house.

For Aster and Knudsen, Beau Is Afraid comes on the heels of Midsommar, an astonishingly dark folk horror starring Florence Pugh, which the former insists is “a joke.

Kelly Reichardt, Michelle Williams Graphic: Rebecca Fassola The film canon is built on partnerships between directors and their personally beloved actors. These ongoing collaborative companionships can elevate a director’s work, clicking in all the necessary emotive elements, and their shared sense of trust—cultivated on screen and off—can...

Chicago – The acclaimed director Kelly Reichardt has been an influencer in cinema since her debut film “River of Grass” in 1994. Her multi-award winning films include “Wendy and Lucy” (2008), “Meek’s Cutoff” (2010) and “First Cow” (2019). Her most recent film, set to release April 7th, is “Showing Up.”

Long time Reichardt collaborator Michelle Williams portrays Lizzy, an academic sculptor artist in Oregon (where Reichardt sets her films) who is getting some recognition feelers from New York City. But for the moment she lives a spartan life in an artist’s community, aided by her colleague and landlord Jo (Hong Chau), and her continued connection to her divorced parents Bill (Judd Hirsch) and Jean (Maryann Plunkett). When her brother Sean (John Magaro) has an episode related to his ongoing bi-polar disorder, one of the Lizzy’s most important gallery shows is heading towards disruption.

Michelle Williams in ‘Showing Up,’ Co-Written/Directed by Kelly Reichardt...

“These three films, they’re all masterful. They’re extraordinary films, and they’re actually quite different.” It’s mid-July in Switzerland and Todd Haynes is talking melodrama: “The three masterworks for me, and to see them at a festival like Locarno, which is very rare, are Written on The Wind, Imitation of Life, and All That Heaven Allows.” Perhaps more than even the cinema of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Todd Haynes’ films have so often intertwined with those of the late Douglas Sirk, a director whose peerless studio work from the 1940s and 1950s have been a rich source of aesthetic and emotional inspiration, most clearly seen in Haynes’ 2002 masterpiece Far From Heaven.

“Imitation of Life is a film of such remarkable resonance,” Haynes explains on a warm summer morning in the Hotel Belvedere. “I think its themes of race and pretending, of passing, and misperceptions of what you are and who you are,...

A cemetery is not an auspicious choice of rendezvous point for an estranged father and son arranging what might be one last meeting in “A Perfect Day for Caribou,” but the dry joke of Jeff Rutherford’s tender, affectingly reserved first feature is that things get more melancholic still when they leave its glum confines. Set over the course of a single day on the fringes of some dead American anytown, this at once quiet and talkative two-hander covers no especially new ground, but strides known territory with a keen eye for lonesome landscapes, and an ear for the eternal communicative impasse felt by men who know each other all too well and not at all. Sturdy, thoughtful performances from Jeb Berrier and, in particular, rising star Charlie Plummer should hook distributor interest in this low-key indie following its premiere in Locarno’s newcomer-oriented Cineasti de Presente strand.

The gruffly...

Sometimes we really do need some direction in life. Wandering around without any real plans or hopes or dreams can only take you so far - wisdom for all of us to consider. One of the last films to premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival is the latest from acclaimed American indie filmmaker Kelly Reichardt, her highly anticipated follow-up to the award-winning First Cow. As a huge fan of First Cow, and an admirer of her early minimal films like Old Joy and Wendy & Lucy, I was looking forward to seeing what she has been working on. Alas, Showing Up one of her worst films so far, an aimless and drab creation that is nothing more than a meandering showcase of entirely uninteresting artists who have never made anything of value but still keep going. It seems after First Cow all she could possibly think of was to film in her own backyard,...

Job security in the film industry is never a sure thing. In this moment, it might look particularly fragile if you work in a vulnerable department of Netflix or a redundant division of Warner Bros. To that list, you could also add film festival programmers — and they should have some of the most secure jobs in the industry.

Consider how Netflix stock hits a new low each day in part to an overreliance on algorithms and too much content that not enough people watch. The overwhelming amount of global content production has forced even the biggest streamers to realize that curatorial decisions matter more than pure data, which means the skillsets of a programmer — and it is a skill — should be at their highest demand. This is particularly true for film festivals, which are defined by curation.

And yet recent events speak to the fragility of the profession. Last month,...

American auteur Kelly Reichardt, an icon of the international film community thanks to her signature “slow cinema” style, will be honored by the Locarno Film Festival with its Pardo d’onore Manor lifetime achievement award.

Since making her acclaimed 1994 debut “River of Grass,” Reichardt has followed her own singular orbit as a true outlier of indie cinema over the course of nearly quarter of a century and a dozen works including “Old Joy,” “Wendy and Lucy,” “Meek’s Cutoff,” “Night Moves,” and “First Cow” — which opened Locarno in 2020 — that have cemented her reputation as one of the most distinctive voices in cinema today.

Reichardt’s new pic “Showing Up” is tipped to premiere in Cannes in May.

The Swiss fest dedicated to indie and cutting-edge cinema in a statement described Reichardt’s films, which she also edits, as being “characterized by intense research on realism and hallmarked by proudly independent creative and production processes.

Larry Fessenden in Habit. Image courtesy Glass Eye Pix.In Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy (2008), Michelle Williams’ road-tripping heroine has a harrowing nighttime encounter with a derelict played by Larry Fessenden—a witty bit of casting calling back to the latter’s starring role in Reichardt’s 1994 debut, River of Grass. There, a leaner, lankily handsome Fessenden essayed an Everglades variation on Martin Sheen, except that instead of a charismatic crackshot, his character Lee is a hopeless fuckup who can’t handle his borrowed gun; in a genre full of wrong men on the run for murders they never committed, he may be the only one who failed to hit the target in the first place. It’s possible to imagine that Fessenden’s unnamed, unmoored character in Wendy and Lucy is Lee fifteen years later, still on the outside looking in and relocated to the Pacific Northwest. Even if not,...

It’s rare that our favorite film of the year actually receives love from the Academy, but there’s an exception as Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car racked up four nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film. The three-hour Murakami adaptation also features one of the best scores of the year, courtesy Eiko Ishibashi.

While the score has Drive My Car Score & Watch Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Music Video”>been available to listen for some time, it’s now getting an official release via Newhere Music/Space Shower Music featuring two bonus tracks. Working with longtime collaborator Jim O’Rourke (who also mixed and mastered the soundtrack), Ishibashiʼs wistful score synthesizes jazzy instrumentals with romantic strings and lush electronics. This release of the soundtrack features new songs “Drive My Car (Hiroshima)” and “ʻWeʼll live through the long, long days, and through the long nightsʼ...

Multi-faceted filmmaker Mark Duplass discusses the movies he wishes more people knew about with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Duck Butter (2018)

The Puffy Chair (2005)

Prince Of Broadway (2008)

Tangerine (2015)

The Florida Project (2017) – Dennis Cozzalio’s review

Red Rocket (2021)

Starlet (2012)

Take Out (2004)

Mack & Rita (Tbd)

Old Joy (2006)

First Cow (2020)

Wendy And Lucy (2008) – Dennis Cozzalio’s favorite movie of 2020

Henry Fool (1997)

Trust (1990)

Amateur (1994)

Medicine For Melancholy (2008)

Shang-Chi (2021)

Your Sister’s Sister (2011)

My Effortless Brilliance (2008)

What the Funny (2008)

Humpday (2009)

True Adolescents (2009)

Man Push Cart (2005)

The White Tiger (2021)

Baghead (2008)

The Do-Deca-Pentathlon (2012)

Language Lessons (2021)

Stevie (2002)

Hoop Dreams (1994)

American Movie (1999)

What Happened Was… (1994) – Ti West’s trailer commentary

Manhunter (1986) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

My Dinner With Andre (1981)

Creep (2014)

Grown-Ups (1980)

Abigail’s Party (1977)

Nuts In May (1976)

Secrets And Lies (1996) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Naked (1993)

Parallel Mothers (2021)

The Freebie (2010)

East Of Eden (1955) – Larry Cohen’s trailer commentary

Strange...

A subject many artists are irrevocably drawn towards, we’ve seen numerous films capture different forms of masculinity over the decades. Recently, Wildlife found men who feel lost in an increasingly industrialized or suburban world, desperate to return to a time where masculinity was life or death, where they didn’t have to be emasculated by modern society or contemporary womanhood. Force Majeure captured the changes in masculinity’s role in an amusing and mocking way, almost laughing at its male characters for expressing emotions and not living up to the masculine stereotypes of protection and strength. In Old Joy, men escape to the wilderness to attempt to get a deeper understanding of themselves and those that accompany them, only to realize that there’s something intangible in their lives and that their hollow relationships aren’t enough to make up for what they’re lacking.

Joining the pantheon of cinema’s exploration of manhood,...

The award celebrates a filmmaker who has created a ”authentic, credible and emotionally striking visual language”.

Todd Haynes and Jim Jarmusch were among the friends and collaborators who joined the Rotterdam International Film Festival’s online tribute to Kelly Reichhardt as she received its fledgling Robby Müller award last week.

In its second edition, the prize was launched last year in memory of late Dutch cinematographer Müller, whose credits included Paris, Texas, Breaking The Waves and numerous collaborations with Jarmusch, including Mystery Train, Dead Man and Coffee And Cigarettes.

It celebrates a director of photography, filmmaker or visual artist who...

Accepting the Robby Muller award online this week, ahead of a talk at the International Film Festival Rotterdam to celebrate her work, Kelly Reichardt appeared delighted with its form.

In its second year, the award has taken the guise of an enlarged Polaroid print featuring a solitary tree, which was taken by Muller on a winter’s day in Munich during the eighties.

Both Muller and the award’s recipient have a talent for capturing landscapes and Reichardt said that she studied the late cinematographer’s work closely early in her career to “try and figure out the connection between what you dream of and what you can actually capture.”

She recalls making her first film, “River of Grass” in the early nineties, which focused on her native Miami landscapes, as she honed her own distinct voice and vision.

“I knew I needed to school myself in lenses after that...

The 50th anniversary event will take place in February and June.

Danish director Anders Thomas Jensen’s comedy Riders Of Justice starring Mads Mikkelsen will open the 50th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). The festival is taking place as multi-part event from February to June 2021, with the first part running as hybrid festival from February 1-7. Organisers hope it will culminate in a physical event from June 2-6, 2021.

Some 60 titles spanning the Tiger Competition, Big Screen Competition and its Ammodo Tiger Shorts and Limelight sections are screening in February.

The festival’s flagship Tiger Competition will showcase 16 titles, which will...

Anders Thomas Jensen’s action comedy “Riders of Justice,” starring Mads Mikkelsen, will open the 50th International Film Festival Rotterdam. The festival will be staged in two parts this year: the first, in a hybrid format, running Feb. 1-7, and the second, hopefully a physical event, June 2-6. The awards ceremony will take place on Feb. 7.

In “Riders of Justice,” Mikkelsen plays Markus, a military man who returns home to look after his daughter Mathilde following his wife’s death in a train accident. At first it looks like she was the victim of a tragic piece of bad luck, but then mathematics geek Otto (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), a fellow passenger on the train, shows up with his two eccentric colleagues, Lennart (Lars Brygmann) and Emmenthaler (Nicolas Bro), and floats the theory of a possible murder conspiracy. The film plays in the Limelight section.

Jensen is Denmark’s top screenwriter,...

For her eighth feature film, Kelly Reichart returned to the American frontier to tell the story of a baker from the Northeast (John Magaro) and a Chinese immigrant (Orion Lee) who together build a profitable baking business in the Oregon Territory using the stolen milk from the area’s first milk cow. Based on a script she co-adapted with Jonathan Raymond from his novel “The Half Life,” Reichardt works within her wheelhouse of the American West as a setting to provide one of the year’s strongest indie films. Could it be her first Oscar contender?

Reichardt is one in a growing number of American independent filmmakers who could finally break through into the mainstream and catch the eye of the academy. Directors that have already made that jump after a series of successful indie films include Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater, Barry Jenkins, and David O. Russell.

SEEOscar Predictions for Best Actor & Actress: Variety vs.

Welcome back to Intermission, a spin-off podcast from The Film Stage Show. In a time when arthouse theaters are hurting more than ever and there are a plethora of streaming options at your fingertips, we wanted to introduce new conversations that put a specific focus on the films that are foundational or perhaps overlooked in cinephile culture. Led by yours truly, Michael Snydel, Intermission is a 1-on-1 supplementary discussion podcast that focuses on one arthouse, foreign, or experimental film per episode as picked by the guest.

For our ninth episode, I talked to Executive Editor of Seventh Row, Orla Smith, about Kelly Reichardt’s 2016 film Certain Women, which is currently available to stream on The Criterion Channel. Throughout her career, Reichardt has been one of the great observers of the “ordinary.” Her past otherworldly visions of the Pacific Northwest complement and antagonize characters beset by institutional and individual alienation. Transplanted to Montana,...

Kelly Reichardt is known for her films with lived-in details, complex female lead characters and poignant social commentary. Despite making gem after gem, Reichardt is not immune to the problems of being an indie filmmaker, with her sophomore feature coming in 12 years after her debut.

Read More: Kelly Reichardt: The Essential Films [Be Reel Podcast]

In a new interview, Reichardt opens up about spending a season shooting “America’s Next Top Model” in order to finance her film “Old Joy.”

During an in-depth interview with GQ to promote her latest film “First Cow,” Reichardt talked about the struggles of independent filmmaking.

Continue reading ‘First Cow’ Director Kelly Reichardt Shot A Season Of ‘America’s Next Top Model’ to Finance Her Film ‘Old Joy’ at The Playlist.

It is good news of sorts that the first official Academy Awards screener that was mailed to members this week, “First Cow,” is directed by a woman, Kelly Reichhardt, and features Asian actor Orion Lee. Diversity counts more than ever these days. The filmmaker’s minimalist style usually caters more to the Independent Spirit crowd as well as such international festivals including Cannes and Venice when it comes to cinematic honors. Her previous movies include “Old Joy,” “Wendy and Lucy,” “Meek’s Cutoff” and “Certain Women,” the last three starring Michelle Williams.

The 2021 Oscar nominations won’t be announced until mid-March and the 93rd ceremony won’t take place until April 24 due to delayed productions and constantly moving opening dates because of the coronavirus pandemic. But the well-reviewed “First Cow” had its premiere at Telluride Film Festival last year and opened theatrically on March 6 to a strong first weekend. But the...

Some spoilers follow for “First Cow.”

Kelly Reichardt’s films are chameleons. At first, they seem like romanticized versions of American tropes: the bond between a girl and her dog, in “Wendy and Lucy;” a pair of friends on a camping trip, in “Old Joy;” the pioneering spirit of early settlers, in “Meek’s Cutoff.” But look again, and the deeper emotional truths of these films are revealed: the crippling grip of poverty; the foreign terror of the frontier; the loneliness of adulthood.

Continue reading ‘First Cow’: Gentle Moments Shouldn’t Overshadow Kelly Reichardt’s Enraged Tragedy Of American Greed at The Playlist.

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.

Directed by Kelly Reichardt

As Kelly Reichardt’s glorious new drama First Cow enters U.S. theaters starting today, if you are waiting for it to expand, The Criterion Channel has the showcase just for you. Featuring four of her best films–River of Grass, Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy, and Meek’s Cutoff–one can bask in the textured humanity and intimate worlds she creates. As part of the mini-retrospective, there’s also a masterclass featuring a conversation with April Wolfe.

Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel

Haywire (Steven Soderbergh)

From the opening moments of Haywire — Steven Soderbergh’s slice of espionage action pulp — a...

In the early days of the Oregon Territory, life was hard. The elements were harsh, and the lush landscape could be unforgiving. Experienced foragers and small-game hunters might go days without finding much potential for vittles. The brave souls who ventured out in search of gold or precious pelts had to watch out for wild animals and the far-wilder men also competing for those prizes, especially if hunger and whiskey entered the picture. It was, to put it mildly, no country for sensitive men. You couldn’t even find a...

Over the years, filmmaker Kelly Reichardt has proven to be a rather steady and unique voice in the world of independent cinema. Largely starting with Old Joy (her breakthrough early feature), Reichardt has crafted a host of quality indies, including Wendy and Lucy, Meek’s Cutoff, Night Moves, and Certain Women. Now, she’s back this week with First Cow, which has a feel of mixing some of her greatest hits together, thematically. In that way, she manages to craft perhaps her most accessible work to date. To that end, A24 may well be able to make this one a bit of a small scale crossover success. The film is largely a two hander, looking at an unlikely friendship. After a modern day prologue, we meet Cookie Figowitz (John Magaro). Working as a cook as he heads west, he’s very much a loner, never connecting with anyone. Having joined a...

Kelly Reichardt’s newest film, “First Cow,” calls to mind the work of 19th century landscape artists like Albert Bierstadt or Frederic Edwin Church, whose tactile depiction of each leaf and shard of sunlight is so engrossing that it’s a jolt when you finally notice a couple of tiny figures somewhere in the background, dwarfed by the sheer spectacle of nature.

Most of us have to visit major museums for this experience. But Reichardt paints her own breathtaking landscape and then zooms in on the miniscule humans just trying to survive amidst the greater workings of the world.

She is among the select few modern filmmakers who’ve earned the term “auteur,” and fans will find her personal signatures throughout the film. It’s the fifth of her seven features set in the Pacific Northwest, opens with a scene that brings to mind “Wendy and Lucy,” evokes “Old Joy...

I would really, really like an oily biscuit with honey and a touch of cinnamon after finishing this film. Please. First Cow is the latest feature made by American filmmaker Kelly Reichardt. After initially premiering at the Telluride & New York Film Festivals last fall, it has made an appearance at the Berlin Film Festival this year showing as a European premiere in the main competition section. Set at the beginning of the 19th century in the rural Northwest (mainly in Oregon), the film is about a friendship and successful local business started by two lonely misfits. It's not just a film about a cow, it's not just a film about friends, and it's not just a film about the Northwest frontier. It has so much depth and heart and humility, an entirely wonderful film. I think I loved it, to be fully honest, which even surprises me. As the title indicates,...

Kelly Reichardt is one of America's greatest contemporary filmmakers; her understated yet powerful films have examined the lives of the working class, the poor, the misfits, and the drifters in Us society of both the past and the present. My favourite film of hers is Meek's Cutoff, an intimate and atypical western that looks at the true dangers of and for settlers and first nations in the late 19th century. Her latest, First Cow, sees Reichardt returning to that old west, this time with a single drifter trying to find a home and survive with a decent living. Mixing this drifter with trappers, settlers, non-white immigrants, first nations persons, and the land-owning elite, the story...

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"We have to take what we can when the taking is good." A24 has debuted the first official trailer for First Cow, the latest from acclaimed filmmaker Kelly Reichardt. This premiered at the Telluride & New York Film Festivals last fall, and is arriving in Us theaters in March this year. Not too long of a wait for those excited for Reichardt's new work. The film is indeed about a big ole cow, what a surprise. A loner and cook named Cookie, played by John Magaro, has traveled west and joined a group of fur trappers in Oregon Territory, though he only finds connection with a Chinese immigrant - played by Orion Lee. The men collaborate on a business, although its longevity is reliant upon the participation of a wealthy landowner's prized milking cow. The small cast includes Alia Shawkat, Scott Shepherd, Toby Jones, and Ewen Bremner. A very unique ...

A quiet but influential presence in the North-American indie scene, producer Jay Van Hoy has built an impressive filmography since he started Parts & Labor, the company he co-founded in 2004 with Lars Knudsen. Van Hoy is enjoying the success of his latest production, Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse, which skyrocketed following its Cannes premiere and shows no sign of slowing down thanks to a pair of killer performances from Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson. The list of films – and awards – runs deep though, featuring names such as Andrea Arnold (American Honey), David Lowery (Ain’t Them Bodies Saint), Ira Sachs, Mike Mills (Beginners), Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy) and Eggers’ own debut The Witch.…...

The year’s best-curated selection of cinema begins this Friday at Film at Lincoln Center: the New York Film Festival. Now in its 57th edition, the event will kick off with one of its most high-profile world premieres in years, Martin Scorsese’s 3.5-hour crime epic The Irishman. What will follow is 17 days of the finest world cinema has to offer.

Since you are surely aware of their more high-profile selections–including Bong Joon-ho’s Palme d’Or winner Parasite, Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, and a certain jokester–in our preview we’ve sought out to highlight some films that are either flying a bit under the radar or go beyond their Main Slate selections. Check out 12 films to see, along with all reviews thus far, and return for our coverage. See the full schedule and more here.

Atlantics (Mati Diop)

Somewhere along the stretch of Senegalese coastline where...