By Gary M. Kramer. The 13th annual Tribeca Film Festival wrapped up on April 27th, and by and large the documentary films were the festival’s highlights. The narrative features were more of a mixed bag, with strong performances saving familiar stories. Here is a run down of several films that […]
Wings (1927)
April 29, 2014
By Jude Warne. On May 16th 1929, in Hollywood’s Hotel Roosevelt, it was announced that William Wellman’s film Wings had won the first “Best Picture” Academy Award, or the “Best Picture, Production” Academy Award as it was then called. Eighty-five years later, Eureka! Entertainment has re-released Wellman’s Oscar winner in […]
The Most Important Film Book of 2014: Film Manifestos and Global Cinema Cultures
April 28, 2014
A Book Review by Wheeler Winston Dixon. Literally hundreds of film books cross my desk every year; I review books on every imaginable genre, director, movement or filmic era on an almost daily basis for a variety of publications, but every so often, a book appears that instantly commands my […]
Riot in Cell Block 11: Less Than Convincing
April 23, 2014
By Christopher Sharrett. Don Siegel has long been known as one of the “Hollywood professionals,” a group of second-string directors whose work was consistently reliable. Siegel’s films are tough and taut; some even applied the meaningless term “master of violence” before it was bestowed on Sam Peckinpah, one of Siegel’s […]
The Fictional Christopher Nolan (2013)
April 22, 2014
A Book Review by Brandon Konecny. Todd McGowan may well be the finest film theorist currently working in the States. His work is consistently original, and he writes with a concision and lucidity that renders even the most daunting of thinkers accessible. His The Real Gaze: Film Theory After Lacan (2008) […]
“A Lioness on the Prowl”: Jonathan Glazer’s Under The Skin
April 22, 2014
By Wheeler Winston Dixon. Under The Skin (2013) is being sold on the basis of a simple premise, which is true on the face of it, but also offers just the merest suggestion of what the film is in its totality. Scarlett Johansson plays an alien inhabiting a woman’s body, […]
Diva Directors Around the Globe: Spotlight on Isabel Coixet
April 17, 2014
By Anna Weinstein. Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet has directed ten features and three documentaries in the past twenty-five years. Perhaps best known for her award-winning films My Life Without Me (2003) and The Secret Life of Words (2005) starring Sarah Polley, Coixet also directed Elegy (2008) with Ben Kingsley, Penélope […]
Diva Directors Around the Globe: Spotlight on Susanne Bier
April 17, 2014
By Anna Weinstein. Oscar-winning Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier has directed fifteen films since 1991. Her film Brothers (2004) inspired the 2009 U.S. remake starring Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Tobey Maguire, and her film After the Wedding (2006) was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Picture. Things We Lost […]
Africa at Sundance 2014: The Quest for Global Humanity
April 17, 2014
By Boukary Sawadogo. Sundance Film Festival is to independent cinema what Hollywood is to mainstream commercial cinema around the world. The best of independent filmmakers’ works compete for awards but also for visibility that could translate into distribution contracts. It is a festival that screens non-U.S. films in different competing […]
An Interview with Sharon Badal – Short Film Curator for the Tribeca Film Festival
April 15, 2014
By Gary M. Kramer. Sharon Badal is the shorts film curator for the Tribeca Film Festival. This year, she received a record-breaking 3,074 submissions. “We broke 3,000 for the first time!” she announced buoyantly in a recent Skype session. The Festival is showcasing 57 shorts from 16 countries in 9 […]