Charles Bramesco, Author at The Playlist

‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’: Quentin Tarantino’s Novelization Is An Authoritative Act Of Self-Made Fan Fiction [Review]

July 10, 2021 10:45 am

Those who knocked “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” as nothing more than a pretense for Quentin Tarantino to meticulously recreate and hang out in the 1969 Los Angeles located somewhere between his boyhood memor...

‘A Chiara’: Jonas Carpignano’s Completes His Calabrian Trilogy On An Unexpected, But High Note [Review]

Charles Bramesco

July 9, 2021 7:06 am

Festivals, News, Reviews

Before Jonas Carpignano makes a movie, first, he must find it. His last two features integrated themselves into the terrain of a distinctly modern Italy and imposed a loose narrative on the real-world subcultu...

Abel Ferrara Talks ‘Siberia,’ Working With Dennis Hopper, Staying Sober & Much More [Deep Focus Podcast]

Charles Bramesco

June 25, 2021 1:20 pm

Features, Interviews, News, Podcasts

Abel Ferrara’s latest film, “Siberia,” finds his constant muse, Willem Dafoe, in an icy, isolated wasteland not explicitly meant to be the Russian tundra but rather an abstract plane of sol...

Todd Haynes Talks ‘Dark Waters,’ Studio Filmmaking & Directing Other People’s Scripts [Interview]

Charles Bramesco

November 20, 2019 2:33 pm

Features, Interviews, News

There’s been an overtone of befuddlement to the reception for Todd Haynes’ latest picture, the legal procedural “Dark Waters.” Where’s the smoldering queer angst, the reverent evocation of a stylized past, the ...

‘Bad Education’: Hugh Jackman Excels As A Superintendent At The Center Of A High School Conspiracy [TIFF Review]

Charles Bramesco

September 12, 2019 10:08 am

Features, Festivals, News, Reviews

In Cory Finley’s new film “Bad Education,” Hugh Jackman stars as the impossibly put-together school superintendent Dr. Frank Tassone. With hair so perfectly jet-black it has to be dyed, an impeccable physique m...

‘Color Out Of Space’: Richard Stanley’s Lovecraft Adaptation Is A Perfect Vessel For Pure Nicolas Cage [TIFF Review]

Charles Bramesco

September 9, 2019 9:44 am

Festivals, News, Reviews

“A Nicolas Cage movie” is defined by more than simply starring the inimitable Nicolas Cage. A true film du Cage loosens its grip on realism to embrace expressionistic freedom in both his performance and the ove...

‘Knives Out’: Rian Johnson Crafts A Terrific, Ingenious Whodunnit About American Rot [TIFF Review]

Charles Bramesco

September 8, 2019 8:28 am

Features, Festivals, News, Reviews

The first ten-or-so minutes of Rian Johnson’s ingenious new whodunit “Knives Out” get right down to business. Johnson’s script briskly and efficiently introduces the major players in a murder investigation most...

‘A Hidden Life’: Terrence Malick’s Tremendous Return To Form Will Renew Your Faith In His Cinema Of Purity [Cannes Review]

Charles Bramesco

May 19, 2019 1:44 pm

Features, Festivals, News, Reviews

The films of Terrence Malick search for wisps of purity in a turbulent, compromised world. The latter part of that practice regularly changes with each new project, from the plague-stricken heartland to an unta...

‘Too Old To Die Young’: Nicolas Winding Refn Revisits His Greatest Hits With Amazon Series [Cannes Review]

Charles Bramesco

May 18, 2019 10:32 am

Features, Festivals, Reviews, Television

Nicolas Winding Refn’s choice to screen the fourth and fifth episodes of his new TV series “Too Old To Die Young” for audiences at the Cannes Film Festival, packaged under the title “North of Hollywood, West of...