Critics at Large

CJ Sheu Critics at Large May 27, 2026 Backrooms (2026) is some very clever filmmaking. [... It] reminds me of the N64 game GoldenEye 007, notably the bonus levels[.] Go to Full Review Backrooms (2026) 85% - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 The second half observes Betty as she tells her story again, and this is where things turn magical. Go to Full Review Betty Tells Her Story (1972) - - - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 A surreal silent animated short about a boy who suffers because of his father’s race car obsession, it evokes the idyll of childhood for an only son, only to shatter it when the boy is stuffed into a car tire, replacing its spokes. Go to Full Review Sierra - - - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 [T]he film makes a convincing case. At just 8 minutes, it’s an aesthetic achievement, too. ... The film literalizes the video essay. Go to Full Review Copycat (2015) - - - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 The additive combined effect has a deeply felt power, partly drawn from the use of colors that are rarely found in much contemporary cinema. Go to Full Review The Windshield Wiper (2021) - - - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 You want to other this Black man? Fine, he’ll show you what it *really* means to be inhuman. Go to Full Review Play It Safe (2021) - - - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 I don’t really understand how it does what it does. ... In any case, the writer-director is one to watch. Go to Full Review The Unseen River (2020) - - - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 [This] is one of the densest cinematic texts I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching. I could easily give a two-hour lecture on this ten-minute film. Go to Full Review Heaven Reaches Down to Earth (2020) - - - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 [W]hen the thing it says will happen actually happens, it’s romantic and nostalgic, just wonderful. Go to Full Review Adieu Bohème (2017) - - - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 The proceedings are a farce of language, physical acting, and a surprising canniness on the part of the two negotiators. Somehow, they come to an agreement, but not by saying things. Go to Full Review Berlin Troika (2014) - - - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 [A] wonderfully oblique and fragmented yet fulfilling evocation of the feeling of a lived-in space, without at any point giving us a clear picture of anything. Go to Full Review Footnotes to a House of Love (2007) - - - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 Turns out the film is a metaphor for the logic of totalitarian control. Go to Full Review Mind the Steps! (1989) - - - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 It’s frankly amazing just how much pathos can be generated by arranging beans of different colors (and sometimes in various tiny hats) in meaningful combinations that suggest situations and narratives. Go to Full Review Scenes with Beans (1976) - - - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 For anyone who’s been entranced by running water or a yule log, the attraction of such a film will be familiar. Less expected may be the annoyance of the ball’s being not exactly spherical and so never going exactly where you expect. Go to Full Review Volleyball (Foot Film) (1967) - - - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 The ideal formalism creates evokes the utopian mature of this fantastical place. Of course, it all collapses in the end, but more remains than you might expect. Does any of it make sense? Not a whit. It’s brilliant. Go to Full Review Waves '98 (2015) - - - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 The filmmaking confidence is grounded in a singular vision: to depict how hard it can be to formally end a moribund phase of one’s life – the difficulty of necessary change. Go to Full Review White Turnips Make It Hard to Sleep (2011) - - - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 The distortions are a direct cinematic expression of the flux of sensation, a stream of not consciousness but affect. Go to Full Review The Arrival (1999) - - - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 This short gave me more vertigo than Free Solo (2018) did. Go to Full Review From the Reports of Security Guards & Patrol Services Part 1 (1985) - - - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 The observer always ends up participating in the phenomenon observed, and Baldwin uses this, in more ways than one, to prove his point that the sheer fact and terms of the Black struggle are inconceivable to the white man. Go to Full Review Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris (1970) - - - -

CJ Sheu Critics at Large Mar 15, 2026 [D]espite its name, All Too Well (Ten Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault): The Short Film (2021) belongs squarely in the genre of the music video. But the level of craftsmanship and resources on display is on par with that of short films. Go to Full Review All Too Well: The Short Film (2021) - - 86%