Charles Bramesco, Author at The Playlist

‘Year Of The Everlasting Storm’: Neon’s Anthology Film Features Auteurs Jafar Panahi, Laura Poitras, David Lowery & More [Cannes Review]

July 15, 2021 9:24 am

The Robert Bresson quote that opens the anthology film “Year of the Everlasting Storm” — “you don’t create by adding, but by taking away” — makes a tidy adage of the time-honored idea that deprivation breeds i...

‘Val’: Val Kilmer’s Life As A Misunderstood Artist Is Showcased In This Wholly Conventional Bio-Doc [Cannes Review]

Charles Bramesco

July 7, 2021 10:05 am

Festivals, News, Reviews

It is the actor’s great struggle to take their work seriously without taking themselves seriously. To selectively activate the mechanisms of emotion in order to embody credible human behavior or an aestheticiz...

‘The Devil All The Time’: Antonio Campos’ Southern Gothic Ensemble Drama Gets Lost In The Woods [Review]

Charles Bramesco

September 11, 2020 9:00 am

Features, News, Reviews

It sounds like a winning schematic for success. Start with a less-than-prolific but generally well-regarded director, someone with plenty of international street cred in the indie cinema spheres. Hire every yo...

Charlie Kaufman’s ‘Antkind’ Is A Portrait Of The Artist As A Ridiculous Man [Review]

Charles Bramesco

August 13, 2020 1:52 pm

News, Reviews

“See, I invented Kanye / there wasn’t any Kanyes / and now I look and look around / and there’s so many Kanyes! / I used to love Kanye / I used to love Kanye / I even had the pink Polo / I thought I was Kanye!...

Bella Thorne Talks ‘Infamous’ & The Dangers Of Social Media [Interview]

Charles Bramesco

June 19, 2020 2:29 pm

Interviews, News

Bella Thorne’s an auteurist and she doesn’t even know it. A proud autodidact, she’s recently taught herself the first lesson of film school, and begun thinking about art as an expression of a single entity’s c...

‘Repulsion’ Is A Chilling Tale Of Isolation & A Must-See During Quarantine

Charles Bramesco

June 1, 2020 1:38 pm

Essays, News

People having panic attacks talk about the sensation of the walls closing in, a feeling with which this critic is not totally unfamiliar, but lately, it’s been more like they’re alive. If I time everything...

Alex Ross Perry Talks ‘Her Smell’ Script & What Influenced The Unique Five-Chapter Structure [Interview]

Charles Bramesco

November 19, 2019 2:51 pm

Features, Interviews, News

The first page of Alex Ross Perry’s screenplay for “Her Smell” includes a pair of quotes not featured in the film, the first from top-hatted Guns ’n’ Roses shredder Slash and the second from Jawbreaker’s frontm...

‘Jojo Rabbit’: Taika Waititi’s “Not-All-Nazis” Satire Is Naively Idealistic [TIFF Review]

Charles Bramesco

September 9, 2019 4:54 pm

Features, Festivals, News, Reviews

Taika Waititi’s self-proclaimed "anti-hate satire" “Jojo Rabbit” exists in service of a single idea, a notion so desperately idealistic that it lands somewhere between naïveté and disingenuousness. The film tak...

‘Sound Of Metal’: Riz Ahmed Stars In A Visceral Blue Valentine Painted Black

Charles Bramesco

September 7, 2019 8:43 am

Features, Festivals, News, Reviews

It is my personal belief that one of the greatest challenges an actor can face is that of making stoicism into compelling drama. The term actor definitionally refers to one who performs an action, and remaining...

‘True History Of The Kelly Gang’: Justin Kurzel Celebrates Australian Outlaws In Bloodsoaked Period Thriller [TIFF Review]

Charles Bramesco

September 6, 2019 12:06 pm

Features, Festivals, News, Reviews

In his Vietnam War quasi-memoir “The Things We Carried,” writer Tim O’Brien posits the idea that a storyteller must exercise a measure of creative license to accurately capture the essence of history. He theori...

Author Charles Bramesco