Robert Abele

Dissecting the shifting realities of ‘Lynch/Oz’ is not as easy as pie

July 6, 2023 at 6:35 p.m.

When it comes to artists, influences aren’t always inspirations, and neither necessarily become explicit signposts in a finished work. But all three apply when you consider David Lynch’s career-long relationship...

Counterprogram your summer with the magical realist charms of ‘Scarlet’

June 29, 2023 at 7:02 p.m.

Classify Pietro Marcello’s sweet new film “Scarlet” at your own risk, because its pleasures are as diverse and unexpected as a stroll through uncharted lands: Mapping the terrain wouldn’t be...

‘The Boogeyman’ delivers more shocks and CGI than dread or inconceivable terror

June 1, 2023 at 9:03 p.m.

It had to have been electrifying to be an avid horror aficionado in 1973 and encounter the short story “The Boogeyman” by a fright-foisting upstart named Stephen King. Taut, grim,...

‘Everything Went Fine’ reveals the love required to grant the ultimate final wish

May 11, 2023 at 6:07 p.m.

The standard family contract is built on an accepted progression of milestones given due celebration, and mourned exits treated as the shocks they usually aren’t. But the rhythm of that...

Girl power and freaky evil collide to make ‘Polite Society’ a rowdy good time

April 27, 2023 at 9:59 p.m.

It’s a sisterhood of the traveling fists and feet in Nida Manzoor’s rowdy and uplifting action-comedy “Polite Society,” a movie with a lot of fight in it, literally and, in...

‘Paint’ has a brush with greatness by mixing colorful comedy, heart and Owen Wilson

April 6, 2023 at 6:49 p.m.

The soft-shell masculinity Owen Wilson sells so well gets a solid workout in the goofball charmer “Paint,” about a beloved PBS art show personality sporting a nimbus of sensitive curls,...

There are ’65’ million reasons to avoid the new Adam Driver dinosaur space flick

March 10, 2023 at 4:24 a.m.

If you asked the AI program ChatGPT to write a dinosaur/space movie as if Steven Spielberg and James Cameron were trying to make fun of each other, you’d probably still...

Ireland’s ‘The Quiet Girl’ speaks quiet volumes about kindness

March 9, 2023 at 6:33 p.m.

A neglected child discovers a her-shaped space to fill in “The Quiet Girl,” Colm Bairéad’s hushed, delicately rendered family drama, set in an Irish countryside of tasks and beauty, of...

The art, rage and action of Nan Goldin in ‘All the Beauty and the Bloodshed’

February 23, 2023 at 7:12 p.m.

Where life wounds, art and fellowship can heal, or at the very least, cauterize into the most expressive of scars. Photographer Nan Goldin knows this as much as anyone, her...

Rare gem ‘Alcarras’ shines a light on the all-too-hidden lives of farmers

January 19, 2023 at 6:22 p.m.

In the opening moments of Spanish filmmaker Carla Simón’s “Alcarràs” — Spain’s submission to the Academy Awards for international feature — the peach-farming Sole family’s littlest watch as one...

Vicky Krieps is magnetic as the Princess Diana of her day in ‘Corsage’

January 5, 2023 at 5:45 p.m.

A playful elegy for a reluctant royal, writer-director Marie Kreutzer’s “Corsage” — starring a magnetic Vicky Krieps as the 19th century Empress Elisabeth of Austria — is a costumed period...

Nikyatu Jusu’s ‘Nanny’ artfully centers an immigrant’s terror in a palpable nightmare

December 1, 2022 at 10:35 p.m.

In writer-director Nikyatu Jusu’s pungent, psychologically unnerving “Nanny,” the title describes a suffocating swirl of demanding job, racialized identity and terror trap for Aisha (Anna Diop), a Senegalese immigrant and...

‘Sidney’ celebrates Poitier’s legacy, but does not go deep enough

September 22, 2022 at 9:46 p.m.

Sidney Poitier, who died in January at age 94, shouldn’t have been the only Black leading man of his talent, magnetism and stature in his Hollywood heyday, when all the...

Mia Goth is enjoyably demented as ‘Pearl’ in half-mad/half-funny ‘X’ prequel

September 16, 2022 at 12:36 a.m.

The creaky farmstead where horror craftsman Ti West staged his own Texas massacre “X,” released earlier this year, is now also the location for the director’s prequel, “Pearl,” the title...

Indigenous people turn to technology to save their Amazon home in ‘The Territory’

August 25, 2022 at 5:31 p.m.

By the time Alex Pritz’s documentary “The Territory” gets to a closeup of a sophisticated video camera carried holster-like by a young Indigenous man in Brazil fighting for the safety...

In ‘Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down,’ the former congresswoman stands her ground

July 15, 2022 at 12:13 a.m.

It’s as easy to ire who Gabby Giffords has shown herself to be as it is impossible not to wonder what might have been had gun violence not transformed the...

A woman rebels against cultural oppression in Costa Rican drama ‘Clara Sola’

July 14, 2022 at 5:41 p.m.

There might be no better time than now to mainline a story about a repressed woman pushing at restrictions in her culturally conservative world, which Nathalie Álvarez Mesén’s “Clara Sola”...

A bit of whimsy is not enough to bring robot-buddy picture ‘Brian and Charles’ to life

June 16, 2022 at 5:32 p.m.

Even as the low-key mockumentary “Brian and Charles” impressively scales down a sci-fi concept to fable size, it neither does much to maintain its oddness nor finds that right mix...

Mark Rylance makes golf irresistible in inspiring true story ‘The Phantom of the Open’

June 9, 2022 at 5:29 p.m.

Wherever your opinion of golf lands, on a spectrum ranging from glorious sport to “a good walk spoiled” (Mark Twain’s assessment) to snobby nonsense, there are smiles to be wrested...

‘Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story’ engagingly breezes through event’s musical history

June 2, 2022 at 5:15 p.m.

Taking only 90 minutes to celebrate 50 years of countless bands making every kind of music in a legendary atmosphere of communal joy is surely a fool’s mission. And yet...

An Iranian filmmaking scion charts his own path with whimsical ‘Hit the Road’

May 12, 2022 at 4:57 p.m.

Iranian cinema in all its poetic humanity is on lovely display in Panah Panahi’s “Hit the Road,” a charmingly offbeat, meaningful journey across remote spaces (and at one point, fantastically,...

‘Anais in Love’ is a zestful romantic pursuit from a filmmaker to watch

April 28, 2022 at 11:29 p.m.

What would happen if the smart, sexy 30-ish woman at the center of “Anaïs in Love” stopped moving — rushing from place to place, temptation to temptation, responsibility to responsibility?...

Inspired by Celine Dion, the musical drama ‘Aline’ is glossy, sincere and weird

April 7, 2022 at 5:36 p.m.

It’s easy to forget that movies are often just somebody’s flighty dream filtered through a process designed to make it palatable, only that sometimes the effort deepens the eccentricity. That’s...

A secret love infuses sensual, melancholic ‘Mothering Sunday’

March 31, 2022 at 8:08 p.m.

“Mothering Sunday” is a prestige movie bathed in sunlight, fixated on the sensual but tinged with an unspoken darkness. Set on a gorgeous English day in 1924 — lived by...

The artisanal horror of Ti West’s ‘X’ delivers more tease than release

March 17, 2022 at 9:55 p.m.

Indie horror stalwart Ti West may not intend for his oeuvre of slow-chill creations (“House of the Devil,” “The Innkeepers”) to feel cozy. But for the discerning cinephile, his throwback...

Here’s which of this year’s Oscar nominated shorts are worth seeing

February 25, 2022 at 9:35 p.m.

Every year it’s a given that Oscar fatigue from an aggressively hyped season can be wonderfully remedied by the pleasures of discovering the less-publicized — and usually more diverse —...

Tim Roth excels at quiet intensity in unsettling drama ‘Sundown’

February 3, 2022 at 10:42 p.m.

The California Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines...

Paolo Sorrentino reflects on his turbulent Naples youth in uneven ‘The Hand of God’

December 9, 2021 at 7:53 p.m.

The California Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines...

Survival is the hope in the heartbreaking Mexican drama ‘Prayers for the Stolen’

November 18, 2021 at 2:07 p.m.

In Tatiana Huezo’s evocative coming-of-age drama “Prayers for the Stolen,” a mountain town in Mexico under the thumb of the cartels is where girls have to reconcile the regular vicissitudes...

Tom Hanks and A.I. are no match for ‘Finch’s’ artificial giggles and tears

November 6, 2021 at 12:11 a.m.

As movies about the apocalypse get more and more relatable (gulp) to audiences — I mean, just the word “audience” feels in danger — the onus for filmmakers becomes turning...

Corruption, stress and romance fuel hybrid documentary ‘A Cop Movie’

October 21, 2021 at 6:15 a.m.

Few movies and TV series centered on law enforcement ever feel tethered to the reality of policing as a living. Most of the stories that get made traffic in a...

Spellbinding, experiential ‘Velvet Underground’ digs into seminal band and its time

October 14, 2021 at 8:20 p.m.

The California Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines...

Sean Penn’s father-daughter drama ‘Flag Day’ sputters

August 19, 2021 at 6:25 p.m.

The California Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines...

J Balvin faces a crisis of conscience in bio doc ‘The Boy From Medellin’

May 6, 2021 at 7:22 p.m.

Global fame meets local responsibility in Matthew Heineman’s music bio documentary, “The Boy From Medellín,” an appealing tag-along portrait of Colombian reggaeton superstar J Balvin at a moment of noteworthy...

‘Moffie’ adroitly depicts a gay man’s life in the apartheid-era South African army

April 8, 2021 at 6:00 p.m.

The California Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined...

Oscar-nominated short films reflect the year of upheaval in which they emerged

April 1, 2021 at 7:10 p.m.

The California Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines...

Barbara Sukowa and Martine Chevallier are riveting in romantic drama ‘Two of Us’

February 4, 2021 at 8:53 p.m.

You could watch a lot of classic love stories — the big, the small, sad, happy — and still not see something as uniquely heart-stopping and heartwarming as Italian filmmaker...

Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest and Candice Bergen have a high time on the high seas

December 10, 2020 at 5:53 p.m.

It’s one of the surest signs of directorial freedom that a filmmaker can go loose with legends, be arty yet entertaining, and produce work that’s fleet of foot without seeming...

Ode to Canada in wacky funhouse reverie ‘The Twentieth Century’

November 25, 2020 at 11:56 p.m.

One’s knowledge of Canadian political history is less essential to enjoying Winnipeg-born experimental filmmaker Matthew Rankin’s perverse period reverie “The Twentieth Century” than being receptive to a fevered imagination enamored...

Ken Loach delivers a searing critique of U.K. gig economy in ‘Sorry We Missed You’

April 3, 2020 at 7:33 p.m.

Are we surprised British filmmaker Ken Loach can see right through the pitfall-ridden gig economy? Social realist cinema’s tireless champion of the degraded, put-upon working class — his ire and...

‘Blow the Man Down’ offers a gritty snap of modern noir with a feminist bent

March 20, 2020 at 9:46 p.m.

A briny Northeastern noir powered by women with secrets, “Blow the Man Down” is a pleasantly spiky slinging of small-town sin that should prove to be eminently companionable viewing for...

Despite Kristen Stewart’s allure, ‘Seberg’ barely skims the surface

February 27, 2020 at 11:33 p.m.

If “Breathless” star Jean Seberg hadn’t existed, a hard-boiled novelist would have had to invent her — a glittering Hollywood/New Wave icon of modern style and civil rights outspokenness who...

‘Hair Love’ and docs stand out among 2020 Oscar-nominated shorts

January 30, 2020 at 9:43 p.m.

This year’s Oscar-nominated shorts batch is the usual mixed bag of globe-spanning stories, with seriousness outweighing softness.The animation category is a quintet of clever two-handers about bonds new and old,...

‘Skin’ never gets deeper than its white-power protagonists’ tattoos

January 16, 2020 at 10:33 p.m.

Israeli filmmaker Guy Nattiv and his producer wife, Jaime Ray Newman, won an Academy Award earlier this year for their short film “Skin,” a fictional comeuppance about a white supremacist....

New Yorkers put on the existential spot in documentary ‘The Hottest August’

January 9, 2020 at 9:40 p.m.

A city’s summer swelter is the collective thick in which Canadian documentarian Brett Story (“The Prison in Twelve Landscapes”) hangs her conceptual documentary “The Hottest August,” pulling dreams and fears...

‘Varda by Agnes,’ a moviemaking masterclass

December 20, 2019 at 5:51 p.m.

A director's last film — even if it wasn't envisioned as such — can't help but carry an air of sadness, whatever that movie's tone, subject or motivation. It represents...

‘Warrior Queen of Jhansi’ traffics in biopic cliches

November 14, 2019 at 11:49 p.m.

In the tug-of-war between celebrating a 19th century Indian feminist freedom fighter and wrangling the overwrought tropes of countless period epics, director/co-writer Swati Bhise’s “The Warrior Queen of Jhansi” misses...

Animated with artisanal care, ‘Klaus’ saddles Santa with a ho-hum origin story

November 14, 2019 at 9:53 p.m.

He’s costumed, he soars, he rescues kids from joylessness, and now like any other superhero he’s got an origin story, thanks to the animated film “Klaus,” a serviceably sprightly mix...

Suspense romance ‘Earthquake Bird’ rattles but fails to hum

November 14, 2019 at 9:51 p.m.

Set in a tremorous Tokyo, the dark psychological thriller “Earthquake Bird” wants to rattle you with dangerous ion and mystery, yet it’s more of a flightless if colorful creature than...

New Orleans-set ‘Burning Cane’ marks the bold debut of 19-year-old director

November 7, 2019 at 9:28 p.m.

What you’re struck by as 19-year-old New Orleans filmmaker Phillip Youmans’ arresting first feature “Burning Cane” unfolds is how much he believes in film as a sensory dialogue between real...

Springsteen’s poignant ‘Western Stars’ provides a guide to the damaged soul

October 24, 2019 at 11:31 p.m.

Concert films, even the good ones, can all too often seem like adjuncts in a creative life, while music videos often just act as commercials, and biodocs typically signal a...

‘The Cotton Club Encore’ elevates 1984 Coppola film from dud to misfire

October 10, 2019 at 10:59 p.m.

When Francis Ford Coppola’s expensive — both to make and litigate — gangster/musical “The Cotton Club” was released in 1984, it played like an epic going through the motions, as...

‘Edie’ aspires to inspire but remains earthbound

September 19, 2019 at 10:02 p.m.

The low-key Scottish indie “Edie” from director Simon Hunter is a noticeably more grueling version of the well-worn genre of seniors giving life’s challenges one more go — in this...

‘A Faithful Man’ provides a sexy morsel of French romance

August 30, 2019 at 2:36 p.m.

A tart, seriocomic morsel of desire and doubt, Louis Garrel’s “A Faithful Man” is the French actor-filmmaker’s second examination of triangulated romance after his debut feature as a director, “Two...

‘Bunuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles’ an animated deep dive into the artist’s mind

August 30, 2019 at 2:34 p.m.

With a title like “Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles,” you’d be forgiven for thinking its director/co-writer Salvador Simó had inserted one of cinema’s great surrealists — Spanish-born auteur...

Williams and Moore face off in melodramatic ‘After the Wedding’

August 23, 2019 at 12:21 a.m.

Handsome, earnest and reserved, despite a succession of soul-rattling character revelations, “After the Wedding” is the kind of well-appointed, morality-minded adult soap that once had pride of place throughout an...

‘Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark’ sees del Toro get his teen horror freak on

August 14, 2019 at 6:06 p.m.

Oscar-winning horrormeister Guillermo del Toro has put kids at the center of his movies before — “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Devil’s Backbone” — but they’ve been decidedly adult in their themes...

‘Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark’ sees del Toro get his teen horror freak on

August 8, 2019 at 10:15 p.m.

Oscar-winning horrormeister Guillermo del Toro has put kids at the center of his movies before — “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Devil’s Backbone” — but they’ve been decidedly adult in their themes...

Review: Stephane Brize’s French drama ‘At War’ takes up the gritty cry of the working class

August 5, 2019 at 11:36 p.m.

Vibrating with the plight of the economy’s least-protected workers, French filmmaker Stéphane Brizé’s “At War (En Guerre),” with frequent star Vincent Lindon as a fiery union man, offers up a...

Stephane Brize’s French drama ‘At War’ takes up the gritty cry of the working class

August 2, 2019 at 5:23 p.m.

Vibrating with the plight of the economy’s least-protected workers, French filmmaker Stéphane Brizé’s “At War (En Guerre),” with frequent star Vincent Lindon as a fiery union man, offers up a...

‘A Faithful Man’ provides a sexy morsel of French romance

August 1, 2019 at 6:52 p.m.

A tart, seriocomic morsel of desire and doubt, Louis Garrel’s “A Faithful Man” is the French actor-filmmaker’s second examination of triangulated romance after his debut feature as a director, “Two...

‘Cassandro the Exotico!’ celebrates the battles of a gay luchador

August 1, 2019 at 3:37 p.m.

With camp grace and bulldog ferocity, El Paso-born luchador Cassandro took the Mexican wrestling world by storm starting in the 1990s as its first openly gay performer, a popular champion...

‘The Ground Beneath My Feet’ tracks a woman’s tightly wound world falling apart

August 1, 2019 at 1:58 a.m.

At times throughout Austrian filmmaker Marie Kreutzer’s arresting psychological character study “The Ground Beneath My Feet,” high-powered business consultant Lola (Valerie Pachner) is shown jolted by something we don’t notice,...

‘Skin’ never gets deeper than its white supremacist protagonists’ tattoos

July 25, 2019 at 3:27 p.m.

Israeli filmmaker Guy Nattiv and his producer wife, Jaime Ray Newman, won an Academy Award earlier this year for their short film “Skin,” a fictional comeuppance about a white supremacist....

Stephane Brize’s French drama ‘At War’ takes up the gritty cry of the working class

July 25, 2019 at 3:09 p.m.

Vibrating with the plight of the economy’s least-protected workers, French filmmaker Stéphane Brizé’s “At War (En Guerre),” with frequent star Vincent Lindon as a fiery union man, offers up a...

Jeff Goldblum and Tye Sheridan mine gloomy nostalgic Americana in ‘The Mountain’

July 25, 2019 at 12:51 a.m.

The antithesis of any notion of cinema as an uplifting art, Rick Alverson’s movies are psychic sores without Band-Aids: open wounds left to fester and disconcert, but which nonetheless sporadically...

Review: ‘The Proposal’ examines a real-life art world provocation with dramatic flair

July 5, 2019 at 5:43 p.m.

Jill Magid’s “The Proposal,” which chronicles a most unusual project surrounding the managed legacy of Mexico’s most renowned architect — the late Pritzker-winning Modernist Luis Barragán — is an investigation...

Review: ‘The Proposal’ examines a real-life art world provocation with dramatic flair

July 4, 2019 at 7:22 p.m.

Jill Magid’s “The Proposal,” which chronicles a most unusual project surrounding the managed legacy of Mexico’s most renowned architect — the late Pritzker-winning Modernist Luis Barragán — is an investigation...

Review: Absurdist telenovela ‘The Wandering Soap Opera’ is a singular treat

June 28, 2019 at 7:20 p.m.

When experimental Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz returned from to his Pinochet-free homeland in 1989, he began work on a small-scale project likening his status as an exile reabsorbing life...

Review: Absurdist telenovela ‘The Wandering Soap Opera’ is a singular treat

June 27, 2019 at 11:24 p.m.

When experimental Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz returned from to his Pinochet-free homeland in 1989, he began work on a small-scale project likening his status as an exile reabsorbing life...

Review: Vietnamese drama ‘The Third Wife’ unveils a tactile slice of women’s history

June 20, 2019 at 9:46 p.m.

Ash Mayfair’s painterly Vietnamese drama “The Third Wife” draws us in to a cloistered world of 18th century rural polygamy and suppressed desire that puts a filmic on every...

Review: Jakob Dylan and ‘Echo in the Canyon’ recall the mid-1960s Harmonic Invasion

June 6, 2019 at 8:55 p.m.

The Brits may have had their rock invasion, but in the ’60s California had its sun-dappled version, headquartered in the wooded slopes and curling roads of Laurel Canyon, where a...

Review: ‘Babylon,’ a legendary look at South London’s reggae scene, finally hits U.S.

May 23, 2019 at 11:57 p.m.

Like a speaker blast from a not-exactly-distant past, the 1980 British film “Babylon” is only now getting an inaugural American release, and its late arrival is a welcome one in...

Review: Werner Herzog profiles Gorbachev in new documentary

May 23, 2019 at 10:38 p.m.

Sometimes you don’t realize you needed a cinematic pairing until you see it, as with Werner Herzog interviewing Mikhail Gorbachev for the German filmmaker’s biographical doc of the consequential 20th...

Review: ‘Babylon,’ a legendary look at South London’s reggae scene, finally hits U.S.

May 23, 2019 at 10:32 p.m.

Like a speaker blast from a not-exactly-distant past, the 1980 British film “Babylon” is only now getting an inaugural American release, and its late arrival is a welcome one in...

Review: ‘Trial by Fire’ details a wrongful execution in Texas

May 16, 2019 at 11:08 p.m.

To read David Grann’s 2009 New Yorker story “Trial by Fire” — about an arson case that sentenced a Texas father named Cameron Todd Willingham for the murder of his...

Review: ‘The Biggest Little Farm’ is a winning doc about a couple’s agricultural dream

May 16, 2019 at 10:19 p.m.

Few things have sent up our food-conscious era quite so accurately (or affectionately) as that first-season “Portlandia” sketch in which a restaurant waiter is given the third degree by concerned...

Review: ‘Trial by Fire’ details a wrongful execution in Texas

May 16, 2019 at 9:53 p.m.

To read David Grann’s 2009 New Yorker story “Trial by Fire” — about an arson case that sentenced a Texas father named Cameron Todd Willingham for the murder of his...

Review: ‘Teen Spirit’ trades its pop heart for shallow glitz

April 18, 2019 at 11:16 p.m.

A three-minute pop song can provide an eternity of happiness, and a 90-minute movie can feel as brief as a finger snap. But writer-director Max Minghella’s U.K.-set fairy tale “Teen...

Review: ‘Teen Spirit’ trades its pop heart for shallow glitz

April 18, 2019 at 11:07 p.m.

A three-minute pop song can provide an eternity of happiness, and a 90-minute movie can feel as brief as a finger snap. But writer-director Max Minghella’s U.K.-set fairy tale “Teen...