REFLECTION IN A DEAD DIAMOND / Reflet dans un Diamant Mort
(Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet, 2025, Belgium/
Luxembourg/Italy/France, 87 minutes)
Belgian filmmaking couple Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet recreate and recontextualize the imaginative Eurospy films of the 1960s and '70s–with lacings of Italian comic book and Mission: Impossible iconography–in the stylish, fast-moving action thriller Reflection in a Dead Diamond.
The prototypical version of these films featured rugged men and glamorous women, mod outfits, bold interiors, inscrutable storylines, disorienting dubbing, and swinging scores. Forzani and Cattet's followup to 2017's horror western Let the Corpses Tan revolves around men chasing after diamonds--and each other--and the women who help or hinder their quests…before giving way to something more multi-layered and self-referential.
Over the course of their 24-year career, the duo has mastered the art of the outré assemblage through tactile closeups, multiple exposures, colored gels and filters, animated sequences, bursts of intense violence, and vivid sound design–heavy on the squeaking latex–that conjures up images of Toby Jones feverishly hacking away at produce and other squishy items in Peter Strickland's Berberian Sound Studio. (Fittingly, Strickland voices one of the screams in The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears.) Their fourth feature film is no different.
Further, most effects appear to be practical, which definitely adds to the appeal. There's a certain weightlessness to computer-generated effects that has always kept me at arm's length; everything in a Forzani-Cattet production, no matter how outlandish, feels palpable and weighty.
They begin with Diman (Italian actor Fabio Testi, Monte Hellman's Road to Nowhere), a retired spy at a hotel café on the Côte d'Azur sipping a cocktail while watching a brunette beauty (Sophie Mousel) soaking up the sun.
Throughout the film, they intercut closeups of his brown eyes, a signature Sergio Leone move (though Testi doesn't appear to have worked with the spaghetti western pioneer). It's something they've been doing since their 2009 directorial debut, Amer, so it also counts as their signature move.
When the brunette takes off her bikini top and reclines, the sun catches a certain diamond piercing, something that never appeared in any James Bond movie, even as this one incorporates tropes associated with Sean Connery's iteration of the British spy…and that of his brother Neil, who starred in Alberto De Martino's 1967 Eurospy entry Operation Kid Brother, an inspiration Forzani has described as "very pop, very psychedelic, very fun."
Diman wears a holster and gun under his white suit jacket, a nod to Dirk Bogarde's desperately lonely composer Gustav von Aschenbach (left) in Luchino Visconti's Thomas Mann adaptation Death in Venice, and carries an attaché case filled with spy gizmos, like a silver ring with laser eye that allows him to see through walls and other surfaces.
When the brunette, a guest at the same luxury hotel, disappears, the septuagenarian ex-spy sets out to solve the mystery. In the film, she appears to leave for a yachting excursion with John (Yannick Renier, Jérémie Renier's older brother), a handsome spy convinced she has information he needs about his client, oil baron Markus Strand (Koen De Bouw, star of the original Belgian Professor T), so he attempts to torture it out of her.
When that gambit fails, his female associate (Céline Camara) attempts to seduce Strand while wearing a silver grill and a Paco Rabanne-style palette shift with a red jewel in the center that does interesting tricks, like dispatching a ninja crew in a sequence that reminded me of Elia Suleiman's black comedy Divine Intervention in which one Palestinian woman puts five Israeli men in their place. In this case, even the palettes have powers.
John also has one of the fancy rings, which he uses to see through a poker hand--cheater!--suggesting that he's a younger version of Diman, or that Diman is imagining all of these things. John also walks a red carpet, attends a press conference, and re-enacts the torture scene on a movie set, suggesting that his every action is staged and directed. Or that Diman, possibly suffering from dementia, can't tell the difference. Not until the end credits did I clock that John's last name is Diman, so yes, same guy, but that doesn't unlock the intentionally-ambiguous screenplay's every secret.
In its early stages, the women in the film don't make out too well.
Instead of the asphyxiating gold paint of Guy Hamilton's Goldfinger, one ends up coated in black oil paint--like one of Yves Klein's cobalt-clad human paintbrushes--and things only get worse from there, though everything is too stylized to qualify as misogynistic, especially once Forzani and Cattet introduce the Satanik-inspired Serpentik (mostly French-Vietnamese choreographer Thi Mai Nguyen, but sometimes Barbara Hellemans, Sylvia Camarda, or other performers), a latex-clad sphinx who obliterates a roomful of manly men with her metal talons, stiletto heels, and hook-filled extensions.
As Forzani told Anton Bitel in 2020, "When we made our short films, in one… it was a man who was killed, in the other it was a woman. We wanted to be equal in the violence [both laugh], and in the male and female aspect."
Throughout, there's plenty of crushed glass and torn flesh–Amer used sea salt in similar ways–recalling both Lucio Fulci and Miike Takashi, though possibly more inventive than either.
And that's just scratching the surface–pun intended–since there's also naked sword-fighting, murder by foosball, comic book panels that come to life, a Black opera singer (singer/actress Kezia Quental) inspired by Diva's Cynthia Hawkins--the filmmakers even include Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez's "La Wally" on the soundtrack--an eye-popping op art carpet, and Maria de Medeiros in platinum blonde hair and deep red lipstick. (Sadly, some critics have conflated Quental, also Black, with Camara, even though the two women don't look much alike.)
Forzani and Cattet have studied their gialli and fumetti neri well.
Though the films are otherwise quite different--no zombies appear in this one--I'm also fond of Michele Soavi's 1994 fumetti neri adaptation Cemetery Man, which sprung from the pages of Italian comic book author Tiziano Sclavi's 1991 novel Dellamorte Dellamore. Sclavi's work, however, came later, unlike Mario Bava's 1968 Danger: Diabolik, an adaptation of Angela and Luciana Giussani's Diabolik series, to which Reflection in a Dead Diamond pays direct homage.
Though few lines struck me as funny–not least because Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet prioritize imagery over dialogue–a number of abrupt or unexpected edits made me laugh, even as the actors always play it straight. If they never wink at the audience, the filmmakers and steadfast editor Bernard Beets do just that with their clever juxtapositions, ensuring that things never get too heavy no matter how close they dance to the edge.
DP Manuel Dacosse, who shot all four of their features, also deserves credit for his stellar work for the duo, in addition to other strong visual stylists, like Lucile Hadžihalilović (Évolution) and François Ozon (Peter von Kant).
For those not tuned to their fantastical, fetishistic frequency, this thing will be a chore–even at 87 minutes–but for the rest: a bloody good time awaits.
HIS MOTORBIKE, HER ISLAND / Kare no ōtobai, kanojo no shima (Nobuhiko Ôbayashi, 1986, Japan, 90 minutes)
Welcome to my island Hope you like me, you ain't leaving. –Caroline Polachek (2023)
Nobuhiko Ôbayashi, who passed away in 2020 at 82, was one of Japan's foremost antiwar filmmakers, a master of the experimental short film (for both theatrical and advertising purposes), and the go-for-broke genius behind the most bonkers horror-comedy musical ever made–though Miike Takashi's multimedia zom-com Happiness of the Katakuris comes close.
That's only a sampling of Ôbayashi's many talents, but most people probably know him best for House, aka Hausu, one of the Criterion Collection's crown jewels, to the extent that they've even produced a perennially popular, bright orange, cat-face t-shirt. I doubt we'll see a t-shirt for, say, Au Hasard Balthazar any time soon, but I swear I would wear it if they produced one.
I'm unaware of any antiwar messaging embedded in His Motorbike, Her Island, his 17th motion picture, but Ôbayashi was an endlessly inventive filmmaker, and I wouldn't put it past him.
Nor is the film thoroughly experimental, though it incorporates avant-garde techniques–freeze frames, jump cuts, varied aspect ratios, and rhythmic shifts from black and white to color.
(In an archival interview included with the new release, Obayashi acknowledges that he added the cuts simply to get the run time under 90 minutes in order to screen as part of a bill with director/producer Haruki Kadokawa's crime thriller Cabaret.)
All told, it's one of his most accessible efforts, though still unconventional by most any standard, then and now.
In Ôbayashi's nouvelle vague-inspired take on the Japanese biker movie, future v-cinema star and Miike favorite Riki Takeuchi (Dead or Alive), in his feature debut, plays Koh Hashimoto, a music student, part-time delivery driver, and motorbike obsessive in Obayashi's native Onomichi. There's a girl in Koh's life, his boss's younger sister, Fuyumi (Noriko Watanabe), but his bike always, always comes first.
Though screenwriter Ikuo Sekimoto drew from Yoshio Kataoka's 1977 novel, the way Koh consistently refers to his bike as a Kawasaki W3 plays like the handiwork of a man who made thousands of television commercials.
Koh, in other words, comes across like a pitchman. It's funny, but not in a way that makes him seem like the butt of a filmmaker's joke–though he's a fairly single-minded fellow–and I may be reading more into it than I should, but the fact that it's a Japanese make rather than an American one, like Harley Davidson, feels like home-country pride on Ôbayashi's part, though Japanese biker films do tend to favor Kawasaki, Honda, and Suzuki.
In his opening narration, Koh declares, "My day-to-day life at the time was a complete mess," indicating that the film will recreate past events. He goes on to describe his dreams as "monochrome," a partial explanation for the extensive use of B&W, but not a complete one since Ôbayashi often switches between the two within sequences in a way that seems more stylistic than thematic. He admits as much in the archival interview, explaining that an all-B&W film might have seemed pretentious or nostalgic, so he considered using B&W for past and color for present, but in the end he opted for a more random scheme, much like a B&W manga with the occasional color panel.
After Kho gets in a scuffle with his boss, Hidemasa (Tomokazu Miura), who insists that he formalize his makeout sessions with Fuyumi, Koh decides he would rather spend time alone with his motorbike, which excites him more, so he visits nearby Iwashi Island where he meets Miyoko (Kiwako Harada, older sister of Tomoyo Harada who appeared in several Ôbayashi films, including The Girl Who Leapt Through Time). She admires his bike and snaps a few pictures. It's a fleeting encounter, but she makes an impression.
When he returns, Kho takes up with Fuyumi again, but without much enthusiasm.
During a night-time biking excursion, they pass a nude couple on a bike–a possible reference to the cover of Flower Travellin' Band's 1970 album Anywhere. Fuyumi looks shocked, but Koh, inspired, asks her to take off her clothes. This makes her deeply uncomfortable, but she strips down to her lingerie. Later, they have sex, but she cries before and after. Not exactly a great start to a relationship.
On another break that establishes his loner tendencies as much as his unhappiness with Fuyumi, Koh visits a mountain spa, where a nudie cutie catches his eye. When she turns around, he realizes it's Miyoko, aka Miiyo.
She's everything Fuyumi isn't, and he's smitten. She's ebullient, uninhibited, and recalls Jennifer Connelly with her flowing black hair and thick brows. After the bath, he gives her a ride back to the inn where she's staying.
He's finally ready to break up with Fuyumi, which leads to a joust with Hidemasa, a fellow motorbike enthusiast. Kho wins the fight, which Ôbayashi depicts in quick, abstract cuts. Later, he drops by local speakeasy Michikusa to blow off some steam with Ogawa (Ryōichi Takayanagi), his best friend.
To his surprise, they run into Fuyumi, who sings a sad song from the stage. Ogawa doesn't understand why he would break up with such a sweet girl. "All she knew was crying and cooking," Koh sniffs, and indeed, she cries the entire time before running off the stage. Unlike Koh, the widower in Miike's Audition would have been thrilled to meet such a delicate flower.
Finally single, Koh is thrilled to receive a letter and photographs from Miiyo (they would probably be texting today). During their first phone conversation, he gets out his guitar and sings her a song, the first indication that he's also a songwriter, and the second that this film doubles as a musical. Miiyo invites him to visit her island. "I felt very close to this strange girl," he says in voiceover.
That night, Koh dines with her and her grandfather (Takahiro Tamura), who admits that he spoiled her, before joining them for the Obon Festival where the islanders sing and dance in traditional garb to honor the dead.
Back in town with Miiyo, Kho visits Michikusa to find that things have changed. Fuyumi, of all people, is now the house vocalist. No longer dressed in loose, girlish clothing, she wears a fitted red dress and a more sophisticated hairstyle. Miiyo, who shares her interest in singing, goes on stage to perform Koh's song, "Sunshine Girl." (Harada also sings the film's theme song, "Living for Your Love.") Instead of getting jealous, Fuyumi marvels, "She's a great girl." Ôbayashi never explains this shift in confidence, but suggests that the breakup with Koh freed something in her.
Though he once told Miiyo, "Don't be jealous. You’re no match for S3 horsepower," she was, in fact, jealous, and so, unbeknownst to him, she reached out to Ogawa who helped her to secure a midsize license. Now she can go out riding with Koh, Hidemasa, and his other biker friends.
Koh doesn't know what to think about this development, and fears she'll get hurt, though she impresses his biker buddies--"She's one of those motorbike prodigies," Hidemasa enthuses, "people like you just don't have the gift"--as she takes one lap after another. She next sets her sights on a 750cc license.
Though Koh harbors chauvinist tendencies, Miiyo can be reckless. She always wears a helmet, but loves to race around in the rain. Then again, she and Koh live in a damp region. He gets so upset during one excursion, that he slaps her and calls her an idiot. She slaps him back and adds a few punches for good measure. (Fortunately, he only does that once.) "You're gonna die," he laments. Instead, she disappears–taking his bike with her.
Until that point, Ôbayashi has leaned as heavily on the film's action set pieces as its melodrama, but things don't converge the way that combination might suggest. The film isn't a narrative version, for instance, of Jan and Dean's classic 1963 teen-tragedy single "Dead Man's Curve."
In her very good commentary track, Samm Deighan explores the 22-year-old Miiyo's death drive, an understandable reaction, though I didn't see it that way. She's such a bright and lively presence that I didn't sense any desire to die, though the scenario isn't worlds away from David Cronenberg's Crash or Julia Ducournau's Titane. It's hardly that extreme, and there's no body horror, but both Koh and Miiyo relate to their bikes in a sexual way, even if Ôbayashi handles this with more PG-rated subtlety than not.
Not long before Miiyo disappears, for instance, she embraces Koh's bike–in the rain, of course–as if it were a human being or an extension of his body, which isn't too far off the mark (she's also wearing a wet white t-shirt without a bra, bringing yet more sexuality to an-already charged scenario). And when she's racing around, she's in her element to the extent that it's quite possibly a turn-on. If she gets hurt, in other words, it was worth the risk, which isn't the same as wanting to die, though Sekimoto's screenplay suggests that she's going to and that it will have been worth it.
Someone dies at the end of His Motorbike, Her Island, so it's a tragedy for them, but Koh and Miiyo remain intact, or at least that's how I read things.
There's just enough ambiguity to suggest that the final sequence is a daydream or a fantasy, though the film lacks the supernatural phenomena, like possession and time travel, frequently associated with Ôbayashi's work.
Mostly, the film is a good time with fun characters--initial boorishness aside, Koh can be quite the charmer--and that includes Fuyumi and Ogawa, who also come into their own. Biker movies tend to exclude women, to make them bystanders, or to push them to the front as in 1970's Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss with the immortal Meiko Kaji, but Nobuhiko Ôbayashi's unique take splits the difference. It's only when Koh meets a woman who loves bikes as much as he does that he can truly love another human being.
It's fitting then that, once reunited with both Miiyo and his bike, a life dominated by monochrome dreams finally springs to full, vibrant color.
His Motorbike, Her Island is out now on a Cult Epics Blu-ray loaded with extras. Beyond the informative commentary track and illuminating interview, the release includes visual essays on the Japanese biker movie and Nobuhiko Ôbayashi's hometown. Images from Hollywood Theatre (Kiwako Harada), The Criterion Collection (House t-shirt), DVD Beaver (Riki Takeuchi), the IMDb (Takeuchi and Harada), The Cinematheque (Noriko Watanabe), an X/Twitter (Tomokazu Miura with Takeuchi and Harada).
Bruce Springsteen has been a part of my life for over 50 years.
So I'm not a neutral observer when it comes to Deliver Me from Nowhere, the musician's first officially-sanctioned biopic (and an adaptation of Del Fuego-turned-music scholar Warren Zanes' book, The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska). Fortunately, for him, for me, for anyone who considers themselves a fan–even for the merely curious: it's very good.
*****
Prior to 1980's The River, I don't remember hearing Springsteen on the radio. I'm sure many listeners did, because Columbia released singles that hit the Hot 100, but my primary radio source while growing up in Alaska was a Top 40 station (ironically, I would become a late-night DJ after college at KWHL, an AOR station founded in 1982). I was also addicted to countdown programs, like the Casey Kasem-hosted American Top 40 and the show Solid Gold, but Springsteen, in the 1970s, was mostly perceived as an album guy.
Granted, he released more than two dozen singles over the course of the decade, so some may have a different recollection, not least when one of those songs was his signature number, "Born to Run," except the single peaked at #23, which seems inconceivable from today's perspective. (Consequently, I may have heard the song as a grade schooler, but it made no impact at the time.)
Things would change in the early-1980s, by which time Springsteen was already a bonafide star. It's just that he became stratospheric and inescapable, not only on radio, but on the nascent MTV.
In the 1970s, he was the subject of countless magazine and television profiles--including the cover of Time in 1975--so I knew full well who he was, but living in Anchorage, prior to the construction of the George M. Sullivan Arena, means I never got the chance to see one of his famous give-the-people-their-hard-earned-money's-worth live shows. My Bay Area-based dad, on the other hand, did get that chance.
And that's where I'm going with all of this, because it was my dad, really, who introduced me to Springsteen's music. I was aware of the guy before Dad tuned in, but I hadn't heard much. My parents were divorced, so I don't know when it started, but when Dad liked a record, really liked a record, he would play it over and over again (a trait I inherited). This could have been irritating if I didn't share his taste to some extent, but I did; my parents' respective record collections combined with my incessant radio listening, TV watching, and music magazine reading–yes, I was the kid who slept with a transistor radio under their pillow–helped to shape my musical taste.
Dad became obsessed with Born to Run, and so I heard it often when I came to visit.
I have this vague recollection of other records, including bootlegs, and tales of epic Oakland shows, but it all comes back to his third album. I wouldn't say I became a fan then and there, but I liked what I heard. Left to my own devices, The River was the album that made me a fan.
I wasn’t always close to my dad. He was a bright, funny guy with stories for days, but he was also a drinker and a smoker who filed bankruptcy twice and likely died from his habits--both his heart and lungs were shot when he suffered a fatal heart attack in 2010.
I don't mean to sound judgmental; he didn't have an easy childhood, and Vietnam fucked him up, to the extent that he never talked about it, and I didn't even find out he served "in country" until after his death; I only knew about his less-eventful time with the Air Force in Hawaii. I have no idea if "Born in the U.S.A." meant anything to him, but I'd like to think it did.
Like many an Irishman–his parents were the immigrants, but Dad grew up in a strict Catholic household in Queens–he was a raconteur, but he wasn't wild about reliving his past, and nor did he have any interest in therapy, so I only learned about some of his more painful experiences in bits and pieces.
The result was a father somewhat akin to the one Springsteen grew up with (the part-Irish musician also grew up in a devout Catholic household; like my dad, he would leave the religion behind as soon as he could). If his reliably dependable mother inspired him, his father, who had fought in the pivotal Battle of the Bulge during World War II, was a different story.
Right: Bruce with Douglas and Virginia "Ginny" Springsteen
The elder Springsteen drank and smoked and appears to have loved his family, but didn't always know how to show it. He scared his wife and children when he got drunk--Springsteen had two younger sisters--and sometimes got physical.
My dad wasn't that bad. He never hit me or my mom, but he scared the shit out of me when he was angry–he yelled, threw breakable objects, and said awful things–so much so that I stopped talking to him for a brief period in the 1990s. I told him we were through unless he got help.
He later offered an apology filled with so much shame and regret that we were able to start over. We were never again as close as when I was a kid, but we became closer than we had been, and we were in a good place when he passed.
I didn't mean to make this about me or my dad, but those are the thoughts and feelings the film brought up, because it's more affecting in the father-son moments than in the artist-manager moments, which defied my expectations based on everything I had read beforehand.
I regret that I missed the New York Film Festival premiere with Springsteen in attendance–not least when he burst out in song–but writer/director Scott Cooper and star Jeremy Allen White were on hand at the next day's screening, and it was great to see it on a huge screen with a big, enthusiastic audience.
Granted, the line to get in to Alice Tully Hall was considerable, but I arrived early, much as I did when Springsteen made a stop at Seattle's Elliot Bay Bookstore in 2016 for a meet and greet around his memoir, shockingly titled Born to Run (I jest; of course it's called Born to Run).
That line went on forever, but no one seemed to mind. I'm grateful I got to share that once-in-a-lifetime experience with Michelle Byrd and our late friend Bill Kennedy.
Left: Me and Bruce
To my mind, it isn't surprising that Succession's Jeremy Strong was cast as Jon Landau, a Rolling Stone writer who became Springsteen's manager in 1974, but White and Stephen Graham weren't the most obvious choices for their respective roles, setting aside White's bankability in the wake of Emmy-winning series The Bear–let alone a Calvin Klein underwear campaign–but they're both up to the task; if anything Strong's take on Landau as a level-headed, if fiercely loyal advocate makes him less engaging, though he gets the best line, which I won't share here (for my money, Roy Cohn in The Apprentice provided a richer opportunity for his brand of theatrics).
Cooper opens with Springsteen as a 10-year-old living with his father and mother (Gaby Hoffman, also very good) in Freehold, New Jersey. He distinguishes past from present by shifting back and forth from black and white to color. There's nothing innovative about this approach, though Masanobu Takayanagi handles it exceptionally well (the Japanese-born cinematographer was responsible for a previous male weepie, Gavin O’Connor's 2011 Warrior).
New Jersey native Matthew Anthony Pellicano Jr. as the young Springsteen hits all the right notes as a watchful boy who longs for his father's approval, but will defend his mother from him as necessary.
There's also a possible thematic reason for the B&W, and that's because it fits with the world Springsteen depicts in some of his songs: an America shaped by the Civil War, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and the like.
Granted, most of his album covers are in full color, but Born to Run, The River, and Nebraska were all built around monochromatic photographs, in addition to the cover of his memoir.
There are also references in Deliver Me From Nowhere to Charles Laughton’s B&W Southern Gothic masterpiece Night of the Hunter, one of the cinematic inspirations behind Nebraska, alongside Terrence Malick's full-color Badlands, which provided the title, since Charlie Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, played in the 1973 film by Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, hailed from the state (and the 1950s spree killers were largely depicted in B&W).
Cooper introduces the adult Springsteen long after he has become a star. In fact, he opens with a sweat-drenched concert before introducing the musician's childhood.
From there, he shifts to Springsteen's time in Colt's Neck, New Jersey in 1981 where he has rented a cabin to spend time out of the public eye and work on the album that would become Nebraska.
This mostly consists of reading, watching old movies on television, sitting in with musician friends at the Stone Pony, and staring at a pad of paper on which lyrics begin to materialize, though with each new impression or experience, he scratches out words, starts again, and repeats the process.
To Cooper's credit, none of this is boring. If anything, it's a reminder of how hard songwriting can be, even for some of the most accomplished artists.
In the process of listening, watching, absorbing, and re-contextualizing, Springsteen, who always had an eye on the punk scene--even if he was never part of it--discovers NYC electronic duo Suicide's self-titled debut. Though he had sung about Vietnam veterans before, it's hard not to imagine that the harrowing "Frankie Teardrop," which features in the film, had an influence on "Born in the U.S.A.," since he also wrote that song during his Colt's Neck residency. (His yelps on the ominous "State Trooper" are pure Alan Vega.)
In the meantime, Springsteen meets with Landau in diners and works with a recording engineer (the always-welcome Paul Walter Hauser), who helps him to shape what is essentially a home recording, so he has to convince Landau this isn't as crazy as it sounds, and Landau has to convince Columbia's Al Teller (David Krumholtz), who wants more hits, like The River's "Hungry Heart," which doesn't make him a bad guy, necessarily–he's just doing his job–but for a time Columbia isn't on board with whatever the hell Springsteen is doing out in the boonies. As he explains in his memoir, Nebraska "would distort, feed back and declare revolution on the common materials of recording," and so he categorically rejects that approach.
We know how this story ends, but Cooper's trick is to make the film feel suspenseful while retracing the steps it takes to get there, including incidents from Springsteen's childhood which play into the album, in addition to the nomadic life he leads before settling down, later, with Patty Scialfa.
Cooper, who made 2009's Crazy Heart with Jeff Bridges–along with several genre-oriented features–does all of these things, and White is fully convincing throughout, not least because he isn't doing a Springsteen impression.
His blue eyes have been made brown and his light brown hair has been darkened, but he doesn't speak exactly like Springsteen, who has always had a drawl. I detected a little in a backstage exchange with Graham, who plays Douglas "Dutch" Springsteen, but for the most part, he doesn't sound much different than he does on The Bear or the 11 seasons he spent on Showtime's Shameless; both feature more of a place-less accent than one specific to Chicago.
Of greater importance: he makes Springsteen sympathetic, which isn't as easy as it sounds. There's a reason so many musician biopics begin before the artist has become a star.
We share in their excitement when they play their first concert or cut their first record, but this isn't that kind of film.
Cooper skips Springsteen's years as an isolated high school student or the decade he spent as a struggling twentysomething musician. He's rich and famous, but other than the cabin rental and a vehicle purchase, he isn't extravagant with his earnings.
It's just that he doesn't have to worry about money, like most of us. If fame has changed him in some ways–the craving for privacy, for instance–it hasn't corrupted him, and that's no small feat.
This is also where things become more complicated, in ways Cooper may not have intended. First of all, I get why composite characters are incorporated into fact-based narratives, like Elle Fanning's "Sylvie Russo" in James Mangold's A Complete Unknown–a stand-in for Dylan's Freewheelin' Bob Dylan cover costar Suze Rotolo–but I'm less forgiving when it's a substantial part, and that describes "Faye Webster" (Australian actress Odessa Young), the ardent fan Springsteen hangs out with in Colt's Neck.
Is she based on one person or several? (In his memoir, he mentions "a lovely 22-year-old," and leaves it at that.) Did he really date diner waitresses and single mothers at the height of his fame? It's possible, though I believe it's also intended to confirm that he's a man of the people.
That said, Faye actually pursues him. She approaches Springsteen after a show at the Stone Pony, after a mutual acquaintance introduces the two, and makes it clear that she would like to see him. He seems intrigued, but tells her he's seeing someone. Near as I can tell, it's a white lie, because Cooper doesn't depict him breaking up with anybody, but he does eventually give her a call, and there's no suggestion that he's two-timing a steady.
They proceed to become something of an item. Faye and her five-year-old daughter live with her parents, and she seems to see in the Jersey native-made-good a potential husband, father, and provider.
Prior to the end of his residency, though, he breaks up with her.
I found Faye convincing as a fan and as a woman who finds him physically attractive, but Cooper's screenplay suggests that she also sees him as a way out of a dead-end existence. It doesn't make her a gold digger, but since there's no mention of his wealth, I wasn't sure how we were meant to take any of this.
Chances are, he was never interested in a serious relationship, but failed to make that clear to Faye, which is a shitty thing to do when the income disparity is so vast, let alone when he connects with her daughter in a way that any single mother would hope a prospective partner would. It means he doesn't just let down a lonely, lovelorn woman, but a fatherless child, too.
Young isn't bad, but she comes close to Jersey Girl stereotype with her bleached hair, tight jeans, and brassy manner. I'm sure it's how the character was written and directed, but this aspect of the film rings least true, even if Springsteen did date someone exactly like her.
And yet…Faye plays like a character from one of his songs, so I can't get too aggrieved.
Stephen Graham’s portrayal of Dutch, on the other hand, elevates what could have been a stereotype or a villain into something more nuanced. He doesn't come across as a complicated man, but rather a volatile one and, later, as one beaten down by years of disappointment and regret.
There are American actors who could have played the part, but the Lancashire-born Graham was a masterstroke of casting, because his stock in trade is gangsters, mentors, father figures, and working-class blokes.
He first caught my attention in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (he would later appear in The Irishman, which seems fitting). If Leonardo DiCaprio and, especially, Cameron Diaz seemed out of place in this 19th-century underworld, Graham fit right in as an Irish-American pickpocket.
That history and those skills inform his work here. Just as it took Springsteen years to recognize that his father suffered from depression, it took him years to recognize that he had inherited the same predisposition. For men of Dutch's generation, and even for my dad's, alcohol was the most socially acceptable way to keep the demons at bay.
Springsteen figured out what was going on before it was too late. His father didn't, but at least the son had the means to make sure his needs were met in his twilight years. (For all she suffered, his mother, Adele, never divorced Dutch.)
I'll never know what my dad would think about this film, or about Springsteen's memoir, in which he talks openly about his struggle with depression. It's possible that he wouldn't care to dwell on the darker chapters in a favorite musician's life, but I'd imagine he would have admired the thought, care, and creativity he poured into one of his more personal albums. It also saddens me that I can't ask Charley Cross, the founder of the Springsteen fanzine Backstreets, which ceased publication in 2023 after a 43-year run. Cross died suddenly last August. I would have loved to compare notes with the foremost expert I knew.
Deliver Me from Nowhere burnishes the man's myth to some extent, and Warren Zanes' book is there for the reading for anyone who wants a more detailed picture of the period Scott Cooper depicts, but there are only so many musician biographies that have moved me in the same way. It's a portrait of a famous artist to be sure, and I wouldn't say that it completely breaks the mold, but it's also a portrait of masculinity in crisis in the form of the father and of the son who tried, and largely succeeded, to do better.
My father's house shines hard and bright
It stands like a beacon, calling me in the night
Calling and calling, so cold and alone
Shining 'cross this dark highway, where our sins lie unatoned
--"My Father's House," Nebraska (1982)
Bruce Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere opens on Thurs, Oct 23, at Regal Meridian, AMC Pacific Place, the Varsity, and other area theaters.
Images from Rolling Stone/20th Century Studios/Everett Collection (Jeremy Allen White), Amazon (original book cover), Festival Peak (Born to Run album cover), Pinterest (Dutch, Bruce, and Ginnie), Movie Mezzanine (Badlands), Wikipedia (Suicide album cover), the IMDb (Jeremy Allen White and Odessa Young), and Simon and Schuster (Born to Run book cover).
There are mothers who make it look easy, and then there are mothers, like Rose Byrne's beleaguered Linda, who make it look hard as hell.
As Mary Bronstein's followup to Yeast hurtles from one incident to another, it doesn't seem as if things can get much worse, and yet they always do. (Byrne, a fine actress, has frequently appeared in films that don't quite deserve her, though I wouldn't say that's true of If I Had Legs I'd Kick You.)
Some of these incidents are Linda's fault, and some aren't. What can't be helped is that her daughter (voiced by Delaney Quinn) has a chronic condition that has led to a critical loss of appetite, so she's on a feeding tube. If she doesn't gain 50 pounds by the deadline, the doctor (played by Bronstein, who appeared in Yeast with Greta Gerwig) will have to resort to extreme measures. Both illness and protocol remain undefined, which makes things seem ominous in ways matter-of-fact clinical terms might not.
It's also ominous that the child remains unseen until the end, like Rosemary's Baby, except not. Instead of a physical presence--other than glimpses of fingers, ears, stomach--she's a voice; a whiny, wheedling voice of insatiable need.
The unnamed child's physical absence means that Byrne doesn't just appear in every scene, she's often the only one visible, both doubling her workload and suggesting that the whining is all in her head.
Fortunately, the actress is up to the task, even when the camera seems to be inches away from her face. Cinematographer Christopher Messina (not to be confused with the actor), who shot Josh and Benny Safdie's Good Time, has a knack for closeups that don't feel invasive, exploitative, or even unflattering, necessarily, but make the character's paranoia palpable.
It's not that Linda's daughter hates her, but she never gives the kid what she wants when she wants it. Thoughthe film's conception of motherhood plays like an endurance test, especially when a child is chronically ill, Bronstein leaves open the possibility that she's also a real pain in the ass.
Or maybe she isn't, but because we see everything from Linda's bleary perspective, she certainly seems that way. What inflames an already-fraught situation occurs within the first few minutes when a ceiling in their Long Island apartment collapses, so she and her daughter set up shop in a motel while her husband (Christian Slater), a ship's captain, is away on business.
Linda is a therapist in therapy, a scenario that recalls The Sopranos, in which Tony Soprano's therapist, Lorraine Bracco's Dr. Melfi, would turn to Peter Bogdanovich's Dr. Kupferberg for counsel. Conan O'Brien plays her exasperated therapist, who works at the same clinic, while Danielle Macdonald (an Australian-born actress, like Byrne) plays Caroline, a young client also overwhelmed by motherhood.
Linda is a surprisingly competent therapist, but her clients--even her client's partners--don't make her life easier, not least when Caroline disappears.
These would be challenging situations for anyone, except this isn't a melodrama where everything culminates in a cataclysmic and possibly transformative event, and as bad as things get, Linda isn't without resources. She isn't single or unemployed, and yet she's on her own for reasons that aren't completely clear. There's no mention, for instance, of parents or other family members who can help while Charles is away. She doesn't even have any friends.
Then again, she might not know how to make them, in which case her problems began long before motherhood.
If everyone is rude to her on some level–though she gives as good as she gets–she doesn't know how to react to the rare moments of kindness.
Every person, every encounter, represents a potential threat, even James (A$AP Rocky), a motel super who sees her more clearly than anyone else. His patience isn't unlimited, but he offers to help this harried mother several times, and more often than not, she rebuffs his decidedly non-sexual advances. Though he does return a few of her insults, he keeps trying until she finally relents.
A$AP Rocky, aka Rakim Mayers, held his own against Denzel Washington earlier this year in Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest, but he's even better here.
He's been acting since 2015, so Rocky isn't a newcomer, but 2025 marks his breakout year, capped by a cover story for Elle in which he admits he doesn't mind being known as a pretty boy--"I wear it like a badge of honor"--and good for him, because it's only an insult when a performer prioritizes appearance above all, but he's a warm presence in an otherwise prickly film.
Right: as a not-so-good guy in Highest 2 Lowest
Conan O'Brien, who usually plays himself when he appears in narrative features–Todd Solondz's underappreciated Storytelling is a favorite–and Danielle Macdonald are both strong, though it's harder to judge Christian Slater and Ella Beatty, the impressively tall daughter of Annette Bening and Warren Beatty, because their parts are so small, to the extent that I'm not even sure why Ella is in the film, since Bronstein reveals little about her character. Daniel Zolghadri, on the other hand, impresses as a pouty, impatient narcissist. Though his therapist is clearly suffering, his awareness extends no further than his problems and his time. He also appears to be sexually attracted to her.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You begins as a dark comedy before edging into horror, punctuated by bursts of sparking, surrealistic imagery. It's been compared to the Safdies' Uncut Gems, and this scans, not least since Bronstein's husband, Ronald, edited that diamond district thriller to nerve-jangling perfection in concert with Daniel Lopatin's propulsive score.
Beyond her directorial debut, Bronstein also appeared, as an actress, in her husband's Frownland, possibly the darkest of the mumblecore films to emerge in the aughts (Ronald, as an actor, appears in the Safdie's semi-autobiographical debut as a duo, Daddy Longlegs, and he's fantastic).
Despite all that initial filmmaking activity, though, things grew quiet for Mary Bronstein afterward, and the 17-year gap between features might make it seem as if she's been spinning her wheels. On the contrary, her film offers a heightened version of things she's actually experienced, from the mystery illness to the extended motel stay.
There's a line at the end that sums things up as best as anything can. I found it relatable, though I don't have kids, and I would imagine some mothers would, too--even if it they'd never admit it (no spoilers here).
The film, as a whole, is one of the best I've seen about motherhood at its most stressful. Consequently, it isn't an especially enjoyable experience, but Byrne brings a certain lightness to a scenario that might be borderline-unwatchable without her spectacular versatility, and that's no mean feat.
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You opens at SIFF Uptown on Fri, Oct 24. Yeast isn't currently available in any form; here's hoping that renewed attention in Bronstein's work reverses that course. If I Had Legs images courtesy A24(Rose Byrne with Conan O'Brien and A$AP Rocky; Byrne photos, with and without Rocky, by Logan White) and the IMDb (Rocky in Highest 2 Lowest).
A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE (Kathryn Bigelow, 2025, USA, 112 minutes)
Like any major film festival these days, this year's NYFF included a few Netflix titles, including Richard Linklater's Nouvelle Vague and Noah Baumbach's Jay Kelly (Sony Pictures Classics is handling Blue Moon, Linklater's other NYFF selection).
It's always a mixed blessing. Subscribers, like me, can save money and wait until a film hits streaming unless they would prefer to see it before the official debut and/or with the director and other contributors in attendance.
Netflix also makes films available for critics, but the Seattle screening of A House of Dynamite was scheduled for the same day I was planning to see it in New York, so I bought a ticket, because I didn't want to wait for the October opening, and figured I might never get the chance to see the Oscar-winning director in person again. (Press screenings for NYFF took place primarily between Sept 17 and 25, so that wasn't going to work for me.)
Granted, I would've needed to attend the NYFF premiere to see Rebecca Ferguson, Idris Elba, and Anthony Ramos in person, but that was beyond my budget and schedule.
Instead I attended a screening that included Bigelow, writer Noah Oppenheim, actors Jared Harris and Tracy Letts (very funny), and sound designer Paul N. J. Ottosson, who worked on Bigelow's last three films.
The thriller revolves around a nuclear missile hurtling its way towards the Midwest, and the race against the clock by government and other officials, including the President, to minimize the damage. In some ways, it feels like a continuation of themes Bigelow explored in The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, but Oppenheim's screenplay plays more like Steven Soderbergh's Contagion as Bigelow shifts from person to person and scenario to scenario.
It gets off to a promising start by first introducing the threat, identified by Anthony Ramos's no-nonsense Army Major stationed in Alaska, followed by Rebecca Ferguson's senior intelligence officer in DC, who has a happy home life with husband and child. I figured Bigelow would return to Olivia Walker from time to time, and she does, but not nearly enough, since she's the most clearly-defined character, though not to the same extent as Jessica Chastain's CIA analyst in Zero Dark Thirty. Every other character has some interest or quirk–golf game, jump shot, model train, and the like–that sets them apart, but as the action ramped up, my investment started to wane.
I didn't want to see any of these competent, hard-working people die, let alone their friends and family members, and that isn't something Bigelow shows--though she does suggest it--but the lack of emotional stakes proves a liability.
The grim lesson with which I left is that it's better to avoid angering countries with nuclear capabilities, like Russia and North Korea, than trying to stop a nuclear war once it's begun. The functional, technically-adept White House she depicts also looks nothing like the car filled with clowns currently running the country, which isn't the film's point, but the studious avoidance of politics--the culprit remains a mystery--feels like a cop out.
That said, there's something about seeing a decent, kindly man as President that hurt my heart, because I'm not so sure we'll ever see that again.
James Earl Jones, Morgan Freeman, Dennis Haysbert, Jamie Foxx, and other Black actors have played the President, so Idris Elba–though UK-born–doesn't represent a first, but he does represent an ideal; a guy who treats teenage basketball players, his Special Agent in Charge (Reacher's Brian Tee making the most of a small part), and his staffers with equal respect.
Bigelow has filled out the cast with a wide-ranging group of talents, and they give it their all, but I miss the greater care she once took with character, even in stylized genre exercises like The Loveless, Near Dark,and Strange Days, which, sci-fi trappings aside, is nearly a two-hander with Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett.
I realize her interests and priorities have changed, but A House of Dynamite, though hardly a waste of time, has me hoping she can find her way back to the more affecting--yet still action-packed--films with which she began.
At the NYFF, I also caught Duse, Late Fame, Sentimental Value, a 4K restoration of Yasuzo Masumura's 1965 The Wife of Seisaku, and Bruce Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, which I wrote about here.
House of Dynamite opens in Seattle at SIFF Uptown on Fri, Oct 10, and comes to Netflix on Fri, Oct 24. Images from the IMDb (Joe Klaunberg and Gabriel Basso and Anthony Ramos) and me (Jared Harris, Noah Oppenheim, Kathryn Bigelow, and NYFF programmer Rachel Rosen), and Cinephilia and Beyond (Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett in 1995's Strange Days).
PETER HUJAR'S DAY (Ira Sachs, 2025, USA, 76 minutes)
I may have missed The Mastermind, but I had no problem getting to the Walter Reade Theatre in time for the 9:15pm screening of Ira Sachs' ninth feature, Peter Hujar's Day, about which I had heard good things since its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.
First, I stopped by the concession stand to fuel up on caffeine lest I nod off after my two-hour sleep. I was wearing the super-soft One Battle After Another t-shirt I picked up at the preview screening the week before, and the charismatic cashier was so tickled that he waived the cost of my cold brew. I swear it almost made up for missing the Kelly Reichardt film.
Though the pan-European Passages was a breakthrough for Sachs, a longtime New Yorker, I wasn't especially charmed by the central trio–or even the premise–despite my affection for all three actors, including Ben Whishaw, who plays American portrait photographer Hujar in the new film.
If anything, Whishaw felt like a third wheel in Passages, which may have been intentional, but Martin wasn't given the chance to be much more than an appendage to Franz Rogowski's temperamental director, though Josée Deshaies' cinematography was lovely and the sweaters were fabulous.
Left: a set photo by Ira Sachs that suggests a David Hockney painting
Peter Hujar's Day is a smaller, more experimental film--DP Alex Ashe shot it with 16mm Kodak stock, which seems appropriate for both era and subject--and it may not appeal to as many tastes, but it was more to my liking.
The film is the closest Sachs has come to docudrama, since most every word comes from the transcript of an interview arts writer Linda Rosencranz conducted with Hujar on Dec 18, 1974. During the Q&A, I don't recall Sachs mentioning that she published it as a book, but he did say that she had planned to interview several other artists about their day, but ended the project after speaking with Hujar and painter Chuck Close. I'm not sure why, but a recent Guardian profile makes it sound as if she simply lost interest. (Sachs did mention the book at the first NYFF screening on Sept 27.)
The versatile Rebecca Hall (Resurrection) plays Rosencranz, and she doesn't have a lot to do, but she does it well. That may sound like faint praise, but it isn't. She has to be present while Hujar is talking. Sometimes, she speaks, sometimes not, but she's always listening and reacting. Sachs could have cast a lesser actor, but I'm glad he didn't, since Hall, a fellow director, doesn't shrink in the sensual, unfiltered presence of her scene partner.
In the process of making the film, Sachs became friends with the now-91-year-old Rosencranz. Hujar, on the other hand, died from AIDS in 1987, which would also claim photographer friends David Wojnarowicz, with whom he had a close relationship, and Robert Mapplethorpe, who shared his interest in homoerotic portraiture. (At the Q&A, there were questions about Hujar's smoking in the film; he's never without a lit cigarette in his hand, which was probably true to life, but plays more alarmingly in 2025.)
Right: 1966 Peter Hujar portrait of Linda Rosencranz who he met in 1956
The 76-minute film is as much a profile of the photographer, at a particular moment in his life, as a showcase for the actor, who first won my heart in Todd Haynes' multi-persona Dylan depiction I'm Not There, in which he played French symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud, which struck me then--and now--as perfect casting. He would go on to play another brilliant, doomed poet, John Keats, in Jane Campion's Bright Star, a highlight of her fine career.
During the Q&A, I looked around at the audience, and noted a significant LGBTQ presence, which makes sense in terms of Hujar's overtly-queer work, in addition to the the fact that Sachs and Whishaw have often made or appeared in queer films, more so after Whishaw came out in 2013. (Near as I can tell, Sachs has been out since at least since 1996 when he debuted with The Delta.) The Whishaw contingent, in other words, was out in force.
Granted, Peter Hujar's Day isn't necessarily about being gay in the pre-AIDS 1970s; it's about one day in the life of a man who lived and thought like an artist, who knew every artistic New Yorker worth knowing, and who didn't make the money or find the fame he deserved during his abbreviated life.
Though Sachs opted not to include any of Hujar's photographs in the film, they're easy to find online, and they're quite extraordinary, especially his Old Hollywood-style portrait of Warhol Superstar Candy Darling, which Anohni would use for her 2005 Mercury Prize-winning album I Am a Bird Now.
I found the film touching, and I hope it spurs more interest in his work.
Left: full house at the Sept 29 screening of A House of Dynamite
The last time I attended the New York Film Festival was in 2003, so I think it's fair to say it's been awhile.
This year, the 63-year-old festival began on Sept 26 and runs through Oct 13, but I was only able to catch four-days worth of films. I was mostly in town to see a play, Waiting for Godot with Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, and took advantage of the timing to add the festival to my itinerary. Still, I caught more features (eight) and fewer shorts (none) than in the past. The NYFF doesn't bundle shorts with features anymore; instead they programmed seven shorts packages, five associated with the more adventurous Currents section.
In 2003, I caught five features and four shorts: Denys Arcand's Academy Award-winning comedy-drama The Barbarian Invasions with Dominique Monféry's 58-years-in-the-making Destino, a Disney animated short co-written by Salvador Dalí; Johnnie To's PTU, a rousing policier, with Pascal Lahmani's mismatched WWII-era short From Head to Toe; Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Distant, a heartbreaking character study, with Charles Officer and Ingrid Veninger's experimental short Urda/Bone; and George Hickenlooper's Mayor of the Sunset Strip, a downbeat if engaging portrait of KROQ DJ and alt-rock tastemaker Rodney Bingenheimer, with Streetwise filmmaker Martin Bell's Twins, a documentary short made with his wife, photographer Mary Ellen Mark (both Hickenlooper and Mark have since passed away).
Right: Mehmet Emin Toprak (1974-2002) in Uzak, aka Distant
I missed 2003's opening night film, Clint Eastwood's Boston thriller Mystic River, which I caught later that year, but I made it to the closing night film, Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams, which screened at Avery Fisher Hall (since renamed David Geffen Hall).
The filmmaker was there, along with stars Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, and Benicio Del Toro–two of whom are now starring in P.T. Anderson's One Battle After Another. This was in the pre-smartphone / pre-digital camera days–for me, at any rate–so I have no photographic proof of any of this.
As for Iñárritu's jigsaw-shaped film, a popular screenplay structure at the time, I wasn't crazy about it–the last film of his I truly enjoyed was Amores Perros, his 2000 directorial debut–but I was impressed by the performances, Penn's especially, and spotting Lou Reed in the audience was a nice bonus.
Sean Penn would go on to win an Oscar for Mystic River, which also received a nomination for Best Picture. This year's opener wasLuca Guadagnino's After the Hunt with Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, and Andrew Garfield. It sounded too much like something I had seen before, so I wasn't too sad to miss it, not least since every Guadagnino film interests me less than the one before, despite the fact that I loved 2015's A Bigger Splash, his idiosyncratic update of Jacques Deray's La Piscine, which actually betters the original in some respects, especially the character of Penelope (Dakota Johnson taking over from Jane Birkin), who becomes a more fully-rounded human being.
Left: I was there! Benicio Del Toro, Naomi Watts, Sean Penn, and Melissa Leo at the 41st NYFF opening night
This year's closer is Bradley Cooper's Is This Thing On? with Will Arnett and Laura Dern, which looks like a less ambitious, if possibly more enjoyable film than Maestro, his misbegotten Leonard Bernstein biopic, though I liked his take on A Star Is Born, more for Lady Gaga's warmhearted performance than anything else.
This year, I purchased tickets for four films in advance, a fairly arduous process, as it turns out, though I have no memory of the 2003 ticketing process. It took nearly two hours this time around to complete my order, in part because I lost my place in the queue and had to start all over again. By the time I got in, every other film I wanted to see was sold out online.
Members of Film Society at Lincoln Center surely have better luck online through pre-sales, but I don't live in New York, and nor can I afford to visit as often as I would like, so a membership wouldn't do me much good.
Right: ticketholder line for the second screening of the Bruce Springsteen biopic--the Boss didn't show up for this one
Fortunately, NYFF holds tickets at the door for each screening, and I got to each one super-early, which meant a lot of standing around, but also a lot of fun people-watching–it's New York, after all–and the opportunity to chat with fellow filmgoers.
The sellouts turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I left Seattle ridiculously early Sunday morning in order to get into NYC well before the 6:15pm screening of Kelly Reichardt's The Mastermind, but the plane was late, JFK was a mess, and my shuttle made a lot of stops on the way from Queens to Manhattan–yet no stops on the way back.
By the time I checked into my Lower East Side Airbnb, the film had already begun. I'm glad I didn't waste money on a ticket I wouldn't have been able to use, not least since they start at $30 for new films and $20 for archival releases. Considering that Reichardt had to cancel her Seattle appearance with First Cow, due to Covid-19, I fear I'm forever fated to miss her.
More information about the 63rd NYFF at this link. Images from me (House of Dynamite screening and the line for Bruce Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere at Alice Tully Hall), Film Society at Lincoln Center (Distant and 21 Grams photocall), and Posterati (NYFF 41 poster signed by Junichi Taki).
Coverage of the Seattle International Film Festival and year-round art house programming in the Pacific Northwest.
Kathy Fennessy is President of the Seattle Film Critics Society, a Northwest Film Forum board member, and a Tomatometer-approved critic. She writes or has written for Amazon, Minneapolis's City Pages, Resonance, Rock and Roll Globe, Seattle Sound, and The Stranger.
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