A24 Tag

‘The Farewell’ Reviewed: An Honorable and Honest Deception

It’s not easy saying goodbye.    Writer-director Lulu Wang confronts this uncomfortable truth, ironically enough, through a series of lies and deceptions in “The Farewell” (A24), her incredibly poignant ode to the shifting nature of family, culture and life itself.   Inspired by Wang’s own family experience (or, “based on an actual lie,” as the opening title card playfully puts it), “The Farewell” follows a Chinese-American family who decides not to tell their grandmother that she’s been diagnosed with...

Read More

‘The Last Black Man in San Francisco’ Reviewed: Reframing the Cinematic Superhero

“People are more than just one thing.”   When a displaced and grieving man by the name of Jimmie Fails admits this simple truth, it feels like a moment of genuine epiphany that, sadly, will never seep into his city’s collective consciousness. In that moment, Fails is, in a way, set free because he is no longer defining himself by a single story or a single purpose. But at the same time, he knows that his own...

Read More