The Surveillance Economy of David Fincher’s The Killer (2023)

By David Ryan. The Killer argues that no matter how much security wealth buys or the number of datalocks that conglomerates build, these defenses can be poked and usurped by determined criminals. Conversely, no matter how clandestine criminal cells are organized, they can be destroyed, particularly from within.” Spoiler Alert […]

The Essential is (In)visible to the Eye: The Human Figure on Film

A Book Review by Dávid Szőke. Author Seth Barry Watter discusses four interlocking, yet separate modes of looking: the natural, the pictorial, the institutional, and the fictional. Each comprises a specific way of seeing, explains the author, whereby we select and assign different concepts to our constructions of knowledge, meaning, […]

Never Change: Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla (2023)

By Thomas M. Puhr. A portrait of how the celebrity machine thrives on packaging and preserving its subjects as doll-like children who are denied the luxury of developing discernible inner selves.” The opening chords from Alice Coltrane’s “Going Home” accompany an overhead shot of two pristinely pedicured feet creeping along […]

Things They Don’t Do on Broadway: Selections from the 59th Chicago International Film Festival

By Jonathan Monovich. Reporting from the U.S.’s ‘Second City,’ the home of the North America’s longest running film festival….” The Chicago International Film Festival is the longest running film festival in North America. This year marks the festival’s 59th anniversary. Founded by Michael Kutza, the history of the festival is […]

Collaboration to the Maximum: Jerzy Skolimowski and Ewa Piaskowska on EO

By Nathaniel Bell. More important was the fact that I changed my attitude toward creation. I was enthusiastic again. Young, fresh, and ready for experiments and risks.” –Jerzy Skolimowski Au hasard Balthazar is the only film that made Jerzy Skolimowski cry. In 1966, having recently completed his second feature, the […]

A Complex Legacy – ReFocus: The Films of Rakhshan Banietemad

A Book Review by Narjess Jafari Langroudi. A captivating and conclusive investigation of a cinematic luminary.” In continuing the wide-ranging ReFocus: The International Directors series, Edinburgh University Press has released Refocus: The Films of Rakhshan Banietemad (edited by Maryam Ghorbankarimi) which covers the complex filmography of one of Iran’s most […]

The Holdovers: Alexander Payne Rises Again

By Elias Savada. A big, gift-wrapped present filled with sentimentality and lovely, effective performances….” Always a visionary, and one whose seven previous features as a director have garnered considerable acclaim—the sole, gaping-wound exception being 2017’s Downsizing, a disastrous journey into sci-fi dramedy with Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig—director-producer-writer Alexander Payne […]

Action by the Numbers: King of Killers (2023)

By Jeremy Carr. At just 88 minutes, King of Killers moves along at a well enough pace, but when there are lulls in the film it can be as lifeless as so many corpses strewn across the floor.” There’s something to be said for the escapist allure of a big, […]