Carlos Aguilar, Author at The Playlist

Tatiana Huezo’s ‘Prayers for The Stolen’ Is A Magnificently Lucid Portrait of Girlhood Under Siege [Cannes Review]

July 16, 2021 8:30 am

Tatiana Huezo’s eye for lyrical truth has materialized in documentaries like “Tempestad” or “The Tiniest Place,” works that penetrate some of the most tenebrous corners in recent Latin American history with sh...

‘Where Is Anne Frank’: The Past Speaks To The Present In Ari Folman’s Spellbinding Animated Revelation [Cannes Review]

Carlos Aguilar

July 9, 2021 12:39 pm

Features, News, Reviews

A storm rages in Amsterdam, but that doesn’t deter visitors from lining up outside of the Anne Frank House to get a glimpse of her famous diary and gaze upon the rooms she once inhabited. A home address refash...

With ‘The Souvenir: Part II’ Joanna Hogg Completes Her Introspective Masterwork [Cannes Review]

Carlos Aguilar

July 8, 2021 4:15 am

Features, Festivals, News, Reviews

Midway through Joanna Hogg’s seismic “The Souvenir: Part II,” a continuation to her 2019 feature begotten from personal remembrances, her fictional alter ego, Julie (Honor Swinton-Byrne), sits in a van surroun...

‘Quo Vadis, Aida?’: Jasmila Zbanic’s Bosnian Drama Is A High Wire Act Of Immense Tension & Devastating Humanism [Review]

Carlos Aguilar

March 10, 2021 2:22 pm

News, Reviews

Teacher-turned-indispensable-interpreter, Aida (Jasna Djuricic), runs around a crowded United Nations base relaying messages amid a humanitarian crisis on the brink of devolving into an unspeakable catastrophe...

‘A Cop Movie’: An Incisive & Formally Daring Deep Dive Into Mexico City’s Police Force [Berlin Review]

Carlos Aguilar

March 4, 2021 9:57 am

Festivals, News, Reviews

The first thing to understand about the social dynamics in Mexico around police is that they differ greatly from how the public in the United States relates to law enforcement officers. Stateside, both the...

‘Wild Indian’: Unfocused Saga of Generational Violence Features A Strong Michael Greyeyes Performance [Sundance Review]

Carlos Aguilar

January 31, 2021 7:35 pm

Festivals, News, Reviews

Abuse leaves scars unseen but permanent in director Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr.'s debut “Wild Indian,” a character study wrapped in larger observations on the generational effects of violence and religious guilt...

‘I Was A Simple Man’: Hawaiian Ghost Story Recalls Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Earthly Dreamscapes [Sundance Review]

Carlos Aguilar

January 29, 2021 6:25 pm

Festivals, News, Reviews

Set on the trench that divides waking reality from the subconscious, director Christopher Makoto Yogi’s moody sophomore effort “I Was a Simple Man” achieves the narrative fluidity of dreams in a multigeneratio...

‘Cryptozoo’: Dash Shaw’s Spectacular Animated Adventure Is the ‘Jurassic Park’ Of Mythical Creatures [Sundance Review]

Carlos Aguilar

January 29, 2021 4:35 pm

Festivals, News, Reviews

Outside episodic television, adult animation is seldom procured at studios in the U.S. Still; the medium has found stateside keepers of mature content among independent creators. Dash Shaw, alongside fiercely ...

Sophia Loren and Ibrahima Guey in The Life Ahead

‘The Life Ahead’: Sophia Loren Beams with Stern Grace in Emotional Crowd-Pleaser [Review]

Carlos Aguilar

November 1, 2020 12:56 pm

News, Reviews

Sophia Loren’s expressive eyes are one of cinema’s greatest treasures, and in her first feature in a decade the icon’s gaze swiftly reclaims our attention as if she’d never been absent. “The Life Ahead,” an It...

‘Tragic Jungle’ Is An Alluring Mexican Adventure Centered On Black & Indigenous People [NYFF Review]

Carlos Aguilar

October 13, 2020 2:26 pm

Festivals, News, Reviews

Lush foliage paves the frames of Mexican director Yulene Olaizola’s entrancing feature “Tragic Jungle.” Backdrop to violence and the supernatural, the eponymous ecosystem traps us in its mystifying maw for an ...

‘Night Of The Kings’ Is A Striking Tribute To The Power Of Storytelling Set In An Ivorian Prison [NYFF Review]

Carlos Aguilar

September 27, 2020 10:28 am

Festivals, News, Reviews

Philippe Lacôte understands the cyclical nature of human conflict and how invaluable the stories people tell about their collective past are. In the remarkable “Night Of The Kings,” the Ivorian director’s foll...

‘Wolfwalkers’: Animated Irish Myth Is A Stirring Masterwork [TIFF Review]

Carlos Aguilar

September 12, 2020 9:23 pm

Festivals, News, Reviews

Irish mythology has found glorious ambassadors in director Tomm Moore and the team at animation studio Cartoon Saloon. Their Oscar-nominated titles “The Secret of Kells” (2009) and “Song of the Sea” (2014) are...

‘New Order’: Unflinching Mexican Dystopian Film Shocks With Blistering Purpose [Venice Review]

Carlos Aguilar

September 10, 2020 3:00 pm

Festivals, News, Reviews

Serious discussions on the perpetuated correlation between race and class in Mexico have dominated the country’s collective consciousness over the last few years. Cinema has actively participated in such recko...

‘Never Gonna Snow Again’ Is A Hypnotic Sci-Fi Drama Centered On An Enigmatic Immigrant With Soothing Powers [Venice Review]

Carlos Aguilar

September 7, 2020 1:25 pm

News, Reviews

Close your eyes and imagine what Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin” would evolve into if its tone were more uplifting than unsettling and its protagonist wasn’t preying on humans but trying to heal them. That ...

Netflix’s ‘Immigration Nation’ Exposes The Horrors Of ICE & Reaffirms The Need For Its Abolishment [Review]

Carlos Aguilar

August 4, 2020 2:09 pm

News, Reviews, Television

Maximum cruelty has always been the directive behind ICE (Immigration Customs and Enforcement), the monstrous federal apparatus created in 2003 to terrorize undocumented communities under the pretense of prote...

Author Carlos Aguilar