Japan

Review: Drive My Car (2021)

A driver with a past as fraught as his own helps a theater director process his trauma

China

Review: Sight (2024)

Simply leaving your past behind is so much more Inspirational than actually dealing with trauma

Jonathan Glazer

Review: Babes (2024)

You get jokes-aplenty, but you don't expect Ilana Glazer's New York to sound like Woody Allen's

environment

Review: Evil Does Not Exist (2023)

Passions and violence hide beneath the surface of a peaceful Japanese village

trans

Review: Stress Positions (2024)

Narcissists aren't cut out for following the rules, even in a pandemic

deadpan humor

Less than a review: The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed (2023)

Is this deadpan humor -- or just dead?

trans

Review: I Saw the TV Glow (2024)

The horror of the suburbs for queer young people defeats the beauty you can find there

Miranda July

Review: Me, You, and Everyone We Know (2005)

If the world were this tenderhearted, who could stand?

fire

Essay: The Hidden Fortress (1958)

Kurosawa's action classic has comedy, pathos, samurai fights, chase scenes -- and surprising moments of spirituality

incels

Almost a review: The Beast (2023)

It was fine until the incel guy

film noir

Review: Limbo (2023)

Also, some thoughts about the character of Tom Ripley, especially in "The American Friend" (1977).

Neil Simon

3 films of 1967

The Graduate; Barefoot in the Park; Maroc 7