For her debut feature, Cavalli’s character study of a sardonic protagonist offers a unique voice to coming-of-age anxiety.
Author Archives: Maxwell Rabb
Posted inFilm
Review: Afire
Afire is an imbroglio, a vapid exercise, as Christian Petzold abandons clarity in favor of character-driven complexities.
Posted inFilm
Review: The Deepest Breath
The Deepest Breath rivals Free Solo as one of the most anxiety-inducing extreme sports documentaries ever.
Posted inFilm
Review: Persian Lessons
Persian Lessons nearly taps into its intended poignancy but falls short, likely because it tried to juggle too much.
Posted inFilm
Review: Revoir Paris
Revoir Paris offers a poignant vignette to post-Bataclan Parisian trauma, but the most affecting moments feel diminished by the bulk of the film.
Posted inArts & Culture
Born inside a vulnerable brutalism
Like a brutalist architect, Toby Altman is working with unrefined materials. In Discipline Park, his second full-length poetry collection, Altman choreographs a dynamic dance between sentimentality and brutalism by documenting the wounds of architecture—fixating on his birthplace: Chicago’s demolished Prentice Women’s Hospital. “Wagering that concrete or plywood might serve as the entrails of the world,” […]
Posted inFilm
Review: Past Lives
Celine Song’s debut film is, without a doubt, one of the best films of the year.
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Review: All Man: The International Male Story
All Man: The International Male Story offers a touching retrospect of this nearly forgotten landmark of men’s fashion.
Posted inArts & Culture
Forging new architectures
Collaging invites us to manipulate our worlds. This surrealistic technique synthesizes the remnants of our reality into an alluring, illusory vision. But to create these new worlds, we must deconstruct the old ones. This is the collage’s paradox. Artist and architect Marshall Brown emphasizes this evocative contradiction in his Western Exhibitions show, “Remasterisér.” The show […]
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Review: Master Gardener
Schrader’s latest film wanders off into the familiar territory of his unmodulated thought.
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Review: Tantura
The film focuses on Tantura but studies a broader cultural phenomenon where cruelty is rationalized or forgotten over time.
Posted inArts & Culture
Specters of material
At first glance, Tanya Aguiñiga’s “Swallowing Dirt” seems to gesture to the phantasmagoric. Her spectral rope and terra-cotta sculptures fill Volume Gallery, suspended from the walls and ceiling. The figures ostensibly depict the uncanny body, which produces our premature illusory response. But under closer examination, Aguiñiga’s sculptures are corporeal. She threads together her two material […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Reupholstered and reimagined
Pay attention to the details. They’re necessary to fully appreciate Anya Kielar’s exhibition, “Madam,” at Document. The minimal show only features four new sculptures, but that doesn’t limit the depth of her work. The pieces on view are wall sculptures that capture four distinct portraits of female identity, reimagining traditional “bust” sculptures as relief paintings. […]
Posted inTheater Review
At a loss for words
Romantic comedies depend on miscommunication. It’s why we love them. It’s comforting to see that everyone stumbles over their words. Our greatest tool for self-expression often mutates into its most frustrating obstruction. AstonRep Theatre Company’s The Language Archive, a comic-drama written by Julia Cho and directed by Dana Anderson, plays on this ironic tension through […]
Posted inTheater Review
Promise the moon
Environmental peril is the norm. News streams whisper about the climate crisis, relentlessly broadcasting the planet’s daunting existential threat. However, nothing seems to change. Kids, born into environmental defeatism, struggle to rekindle hope as the world yells out in pain. So Theatre L’Acadie’s If This Is The End, written by Melanie Coffey and directed by […]