Lila, a fourteen year old girl, lives in a blue-collar Brooklyn neighborhood with her father.  It's summer and she spends most of her time at the beach with her more "experienced" best friend Chiara, often playing the third wheel to her and her boyfriend.  Lonely and somewhat awkward around the opposite sex, Lila wants to emulate Chiara's behavior in an effort to feel wanted and desired.  Enter Sammy, a tough older guy, who Lila becomes fixated on, attempting to insert herself into his much darker world.  Eliza Hittman's It Felt Like Love is an impressive first-time feature that effectively transports the viewer into the mind of a girl living in a world that objectifies even young woman as sexual objects.  Eliza Hittman shows a great eye for detail, capturing the smaller, subtle moments of a young girl who feels unwanted or appreciated.  Using insert shots, Hittman captures an almost meditative state of a fragile psyche who just wants to be wanted and desired.  Persuasive cultural forces such as rap music, pornography, and dancing also play their part, with the film subtlety showing how all of these things help shape a young woman's perception of their role in society.  The film speaks to a culture that pushes woman to grow up as fast as possible, with Lila deciphering sex as a right of passage, a gateway to being a grown-up.  These days I find most "coming of age" stories by-and-large uninteresting due to the abundance of them in indie filmmaking but what Hittman achieves with It Felt Like Love is compelling, a coming of age story that speaks to the inherent problems of societies objectification of woman.  

John Farrow's The Big Clock is a very tight thriller with noir-ish tones.  The Big Clock tells the story of the relationship between Earl, a slave driving owner of a national magazine 'Crime Ways' and his star editor, George, who has a knack for breaking big stories.  George works very long hour in an attempt to appease his boss but it causes a lot of strife between him and his wife.  One night after a hard nights work, where he is once again forced to blow off his wife and son, George goes to the bar to drown his sorrows and ends up going on a drunken bender with Milliard, a woman who ends up to be Earl's mistress.  Unbeknownst to George, Milliard is the mistress of Earl, and when she returns home that night she is murdered by the powerful tycoon.  The Big Clock is a great mystery thriller that plays out like a great game of cat and mouse, following Earl and George as they each seek out the man responsible for Milliard's death, with our main protagonist George, having no idea that his own boss is the man responsible.  Earl is out to frame a man for Milliard's death, setting his sights on his star editor, knowing that they shared the spend some time together at the bar that night.  The script is taut and the direction really brings the film to life, embracing the race against time aspect of the film through various shots of clocks.  The real star of this film is the great Charles Laughton, surprise! surprise!, who is absolutely fantastic as the diabolical owner, Earl.  He is able to add such depth to a character which blandly written, creating a genuinely great antagonist to this Noir-ish story.  John Farrow's The Big Clock is an effective thriller that captures the power and corruption so frequently seen among the extremely wealthy tycoons.

After nearly four decades together, Ben and George have finally been able to officially get married, having a small but intimate ceremony in lower Manhattan.  The two men couldn't be happier, but when George loses his job at a catholic school, due in large part to his homosexuality, the couple is forced to sell their apartment.  Living in New York City, the couple struggles to find an apartment that fits into their price range, forcing them to temporarily live apart, Ben with his nephew and his family, George with two friends who live downstairs from their old apartment.  Struggling with their temporary separation, Ben and George also are faced with tension in their new living arrangements.  Ira Sachs' Love is Strange is a tender, touching film about the power of love that thankfully never gets caught up in delivering some form of political message.  What I appreciate most about Love is Strange is that Ira Sachs never makes this a film about homosexuality, but rather about love itself.  In using this approach, Sachs is able to create a powerful film about two loving men that perfectly expresses how homosexual relationships are no different than heterosexual relationships, without beating the viewer over the head with a message.  While the premise itself requires a little suspension of belief - I find it hard to believe these men couldn't find a place to stay together temporarily- Love is Strange is a tender character study with two impressive performances by John Lithgow and Alfred Molina.  Ira Sachs' Love is Strange isn't as artistically satisfying as his last film, Keep the Lights On, but it's a powerful examination of

John Cassavetes last film tells the story of a brother and sister, both played to perfection by Rowland and Cassavetes, whom could be classified as extremely damaged but ultimately good souls.  Robert (Cassavetes) is a full blown alcoholic who needs multiple woman in his bed nightly.  He is a horrible father as well, and yes he is absolutely fascinating, as we can't help but care for his plight.  Sarah (Rowland), has just gone through a divorce and lost custody of her kid.  She is in a poor mental state believing love is continuous and never dies.  She is a woman who has had everything she cares about taken from her, leading to mental anguish and disorientation.   John Cassavetes uses these characters to explore love, family and life in general, never judging these characters but simply presenting both the good and the bad.  In a less capable directors hands the audience would absolutely despise these characters, but with Cassavetes behind the wheel, he gives them true dimension and weight, capturing their internal struggle.  With elements and themes prevalent in many of Cassavetes earlier work, Love Streams may just be my favorite film by the filmmaking, being a perfect swansong to his career.  Love Streams is more surreal and even experimental compared to much of his previous work, pushing the medium as he explores these tortured souls.  The dream sequence towards the end of the film really stands out for me, a truly powerful and hypnotizing scene, that is not quite like anything else Cassavetes has done before.  When it comes to relationship dramas, Cassavetes is undeniably one of the best filmmakers out there, with Love Streams possibly being his greatest achievement.  

During an attempted coup, Lady Kesa, one of the high court's ladies in waiting finds herself in danger, only to be saved by a noble Samurai, Moritoh.  When the coup fails, the samurai asks the lord to let him marry this woman as a reward for his loyalty and courage.  The lord grants the request, not knowing she is already married to another samurai, Wataru.  Moritoh attempts desperately to persuade Kesa to leave her husband but she adamantly refuses, devoted to her loving husband.  Teinosuke Kinugasa's Gate of Hell is an incredibly powerful film about the power of lust, capturing how it can consume even the most noble of men, ultimately leading them down a path of destruction.  Moritoh is a man who becomes obsessed with what he can't have thinking he can force Kesa to love him, leading to a tragic and powerful climax.  One aspect of the film I really enjoyed is its commentary on vengeance, capturing the emptiness of revenge through Monitoh's actions towards the end of the film.  With vibrant cinematography and beautiful sets, Gate of Hell is a remarkably beautiful film that makes it no surprise it was one of the films to open western societies eyes to Japanese cinema.  A powerful experience, Gate of Hell is a film that is hard to quantify using merely words, but it is a remarkably moving film about love and sacrifice. 

Awakening in a shallow grave, a man finds himself buried alive with no recollection of how he got there.  Stuck in the middle of the desolate forest, he is disoriented and confused.  He goes through everything he has on him - his cell phone, his wallet, etc - finding his license, and a family picture that suggests he's the father of two children.  Voyaging through the woods looking for answers, the man soon discovers he is being stalked by a psychopathic killer.  Joko Anwar's Ritual is an unnerving horror film that plays against our deep-seeded fears of the unknown.  Viewers expecting a fast-paced slasher flick should stay away from Ritual, as it isn't interested in gore as much as atmosphere and tension, providing a slow burning narrative of intrigue.  Playing out more like a mystery than a horror film, Ritual puts the viewer directly into the psyche of its main protagonist, showing and telling the viewer absolutely nothing, making them instead experience everything as he does.  Being an Indonesian film with English dialogue, the dialogue in Ritual is not the film's strong suit, being very clunky and abrasive.  Fortunately, this is a film which features hardly any dialogue, making this shortcoming hardly noticeable.  Perhaps the greatest attribute of Ritual is the uncertainty of its narrative, a film that is full of mystery and uncertainty up until the very last frame of the film.  Ritual is a great example what horror films can be - intoxicating, mysterious, and deeply disturbing.