Cabaret's eclectic arsenal of screwball comedy and quirky musical numbers is generally set up as a front: much like the Weimar Republic era's escapism, which masked a bleaker reality. But the film's feat goes beyond a simple bait and switch. It is one of cinema's most effective uses of juxtaposition, where such dramatic swings between tones should be all but impossible. It sounds counterintuitive, but Cabaret's cold, despairing heart doesn't undercut one bit of its sweetness; instead, cacophony and quietude…

It poses as reflective urbanist poetry in the vein of Yi Yi, relying largely on two things: naturalism and character driven thematics. Neither works. Let's talk about each.

Any sense of naturalism is immediately destroyed by its music choices, which range from the lamest, most blatantly manipulative iterations of saccharine piano cues imaginable to something outright baffling, like the goofy orchestral piece played during the funeral sequence. Its stylistic language exists in a strange space: definitively heavy handed, yet with…

It is a film that’s as bold and messy as it is simultaneously clinical. With explosive contrasts and non-stop, loud collisions of colors, body parts and audio cues, The Substance is having as much fun as it possibly can, yet at the same time remains calm and methodical about its subject - a singular, deeply effective theme that’s underpinned by a meticulously designed analogy: a highly addictive dose of self hatred. Its restraint does not prevent it from going off…

Eggers remains steadfast on his path toward a more conventional pallette, understandably so after his near-ion project the Northman stumbled at the box office. Nosferatu is still rooted in heavy formalism and Eggers' German expressionist tendencies, which, as always, deliver stunning visual works and head-scratchingly impressive technical feats. Yet, rather than reinventing the texture of a film altogether as his past masterpieces have done, these formalist elements feel tied to a more straightforward, less exciting school of horror: modern sensibilities…