Posts by Neely Swanson

“Basquiat, Africa at Heart,” a documentary created by Cyril Bérard, dissects Jean-Michel Basquiat’s influential trip to Africa. Basquiat catapulted to fame when the contemporary art establishment embraced his street graffiti work, finding it raw, vibrant, and revolutionary. Part of a street movement that encompassed rap and punk, his art became an embodiment of hip hop.…

As “Resurrection,” written and directed by Andrew Semans, opens, one is immediately struck by Rebecca Hall as Margaret, the focus of this hybrid of psychological horror. She is a commanding presence and it is difficult to imagine another actress dominating the screen like she does. Her Margaret is beautiful, confident, accomplished, and loving. The very…

In Yûjirô Harumoto’s second feature as both writer and director he finds the delicate balance between the complex and the complicated in both story and character.  Yuko, a documentarian with a strong code of ethics, always approaches her work with a respect for truth while letting her unbiased position speak for the issues. In this…

It is a true joy to discover that a beloved film from the past not only holds up but surpasses your memory of it. The new 4k restoration of Luis Bunuel’s “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” is that and so much more! Bunuel, whose first work “Le Chien Andalou” was a collaboration with Salvador…

The too fabulous for words Billy Porter makes an expert directorial debut with “Anything’s Possible,” wonderfully written by Ximena Garcia Lecuona. The two of them have created a rainbow-sprinkled story where everyone gets a chance at happily ever after, most parents are supportive, there are no true villains, only those who just don’t get it,…

Mounia Akl’s impressive debut feature, “Costa Brava, Lebanon,” ultimately tries too hard, in her own way, to be all things to all people. That’s not to say that she doesn’t succeed because she does, in that “all of the people some of the time”-way. “Costa Brava, Lebanon” works for all of the viewers some of…

“How to Please a Woman,” the amusing feature writing and directing debut of Renée Webster, a seasoned television director, is not as complicated as might be presumed. Listen, just listen. Beginning the day as she always does with a swim in the sea with her close-knit group of girlfriends, Gina is greeted with a chorus…

In Nana Mensah’s feature writing and directing debut, she attempts to be all things to all people, including herself as lead actress. There is much to praise, but more to criticize. Menasah tells the story of Sarah Obeng, a young Ghanaian-American graduate student at Columbia University. On the cusp of writing her dissertation on Molecular…

“Murina” is the outstanding feature film debut of writer/director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic who co-wrote the screenplay with Frank Graziano. Set on a Croatian island in the Adriatic, a place where she spent many summers with her grandmother and great grandmother, Kusijanovic set out to tell the tale of a teenager coming of age in what,…

Claire Denis, the estimable French director, is the very definition of enigmatic. Ambiguous, elliptical, she doesn’t spell things out for her audience. This is, more than likely, deliberate because she is going on a journey herself, one where she is unsure of the outcome. Writing with Christine Angot, they adapted Angot’s novel Un Tournant de…

“Cop Secret,” writer/director Hannes Thor Halldorsson feature debut, comes at you like the force of the muscle car driven recklessly at hypersonic speeds across the streets of Reykjavik by super cop Bussi. Along for the ride, white knuckles on the dashboard and his toddler in the back seat, is Klemenz, his terrified, rule-following partner. They…

Opening on an archival clip of a very young Patti Smith declaring that she wanted nothing more in life than to stay in the same hotel as Dylan Thomas, one had hopes that this documentary would explore that storied past. After all, the Chelsea had been, at one time or another, home to writers like…