Mark Asch, Author at The Playlist

‘The African Desperate’ Review: Martine Syms’ Directorial Debut Is Full Of Insight & Vitality [NDNF]

May 4, 2022 11:22 am

Late on in "The African Desperate," director Martine Syms cuts away from the narrative to a montage of bucolic upstate New York imagery: rolling green fields and farmland, charming B&Bs, and village shops....

‘Onoda – 10,000 Nights in the Jungle’ Review: A Moving Epic About A Quixotic Attempt At A Meaningful Life [NDNF]

Mark Asch

April 24, 2022 12:00 pm

Festivals, News, Reviews

If you think you’re wasting your life, consider the case of Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, who spent the years 1945 to 1974 in the jungle of Lubang, in the Philippines, waging the Second World War on behalf of...

‘Pilgrims’ Review: Laurynas Bareisa’s Promising Debut Retraces The Steps Of Tragedy Through Memory & Grief [NDNF]

Mark Asch

April 24, 2022 11:30 am

News, Reviews

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union and the loss of arts funding, the Lithuanian national cinema has struggled to make a dent in the Western festival circuit, though that may be changing. Trickle-down from v...

So-seol-ga-ui Yeong-hwa (The Novelist's Film)

‘The Novelist’s Film’ Review: Hong Sang-Soo’s Latests Is Yet Another Charming, Focused Autofiction [Berlin]

Mark Asch

February 19, 2022 9:35 am

Festivals, News, Reviews

Many of Hong Sang-soo’s films are structured around a woman’s solitary wanderings. The single ladies played by Kim Min-Hee in “On the Beach at Night Alone” or “The Woman Who Ran,” or Lee Hye-Young in “In Front...

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‘Neptune Frost’: Saul Williams’ Sci-Fi Musical Is An Afrofuturist Sight To Behold [NYFF Review]

Mark Asch

October 12, 2021 12:28 pm

Festivals, News, Reviews

Coltan, short for columbo-tantalite, is an ore containing the metal element tantalum, which due to its resistance to corrosion and high permittivity is used in capacitors essential to the functioning of smartp...

‘Introduction’ Is Hong Sang-Soo Stripping Down His Artistry To its Simplest, Most Telling Gestures [NYFF Review]

Mark Asch

October 4, 2021 3:21 pm

Festivals, News, Reviews

South Korean film director Hong Sang-soo is cinema’s reigning poet of strained politeness, awkward confrontation, and space-filling chatter. In film after film—there are two Hongs at this year’s New York Film ...

‘Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn’ The Golden Bear Winner Delivers The Goods [NYFF Review]

Mark Asch

October 1, 2021 1:47 pm

News, Reviews

Let’s get this out of the way out front: Yes, the Romanian film “Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn,” winner of the Golden Bear at the 2021 Berlinale, opens with about three and a half minutes of hardcore pornogra...

‘Hester Street’ Is A Classic Jewish Immigrant Tale Worth Seeking Out [NYFF Review]

Mark Asch

October 1, 2021 1:34 pm

Festivals, News, Reviews

“Hester Street,” Joan Micklin Silver’s classic 1975 feature debut, portrays with momentous poignancy the Jewish immigrant experience in turn-of-the-century New York City: the lure of assimilation and the falli...

‘The Tsugua Diaries’: Miguel Gomes & Maureen Fazendeiro Deconstruct Filmmaking In A Meta-Arthouse ‘Tenet’ [NYFF Review]

Mark Asch

September 26, 2021 1:56 pm

Festivals, News, Reviews

Unfolding like an arthouse version of that joke about what you get when you play a country song backward (you wife, your truck, and your dog come back), Miguel Gomes and Maureen Fazendeiro’s “The Tsugua Diarie...

‘JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass’: Oliver Stone Attempts A Weak Victory Lap In The Receptive-To-Conspiracy Age [Cannes Review]

Mark Asch

July 18, 2021 4:15 pm

Festivals, News, Reviews

Conspiracy theorists have spent more time researching their subjects than you have and have facts ready at their disposable with which to bury you in. Take filmmaker Oliver Stone, for example. Spend three hour...

Author Mark Asch