By Celluloid Liberation Front. A bruised urban womb, livid with solitude and alienation: New York, phallocratic capital of the New World. Venting his inner but tangible malaise is Brandon, a successful man in his thirties whose days are tormented by an unforgiving addiction. What appears as an accomplished individual is […]
The New Tenants’ Day from Hell Leads to an Oscar
January 16, 2012
The New Tenants won the Academy Award for best live action short film in 2010. Amy R. Handler has talked to the men behind the movie. Who hasn’t had a day where ‘everything breaks down in a bucket of hell?’ We’ve all had such an experience – chances are, several […]
Last Words of Mr. Kurtz
By Rajko Radovic. A trip up the river ends with a strange voice that pulls you in and doesn’t let go. You might feel that you’re becoming a victim of some sort of feverish delusion, connected with the tropical environment. It is precisely this unsettling river-voice that seems to hover […]
The First Latina to Conquer Hollywood
By Martin Mulcahey. Hollywood has not always been accepting of Latinas. Current stars Salma Hayek, Eva Mendes, and Penélope Cruz follow in the footsteps of trailblazing Dolores Del Rio. Celebrated as “The Princess of Mexico”, Del Rio was a star whose allure captivated legendary figures Orson Wells, Marlon Brando, Elvis […]
A Revolutionary Festival: 33rd International Festival of Mediterranean Cinema at Montpellier (October 21-29, 2011)
By Christiane Passevant translated by Neville Rigby. True to tradition, the 33rd International Festival of Mediterranean Cinema, CINEMED, fulfilled its role in revealing new cinematic talent, while also reflecting the new movements, revolts and revolutions around the wider Mediterranean. The great surprise of the year has been to evaluate how […]
Arab Cinema Now and Tomorrow
By Omar Robert Hamilton. No form of art is as tied to reality as cinema. Though Hollywood would have us think differently, the fundamental element to making a film is to press record on a camera. From cinema verité to Avatar – the first step toward making a film […]
Tom McCarthy’s Win Win: All in the Game
By Matthew Sorrento. While wary of classification in general, filmmakers and cinephiles resist associations to the “sports movie” the most. The athlete’s journey to the final match, the win- or lose-all moment, is often simplified into mass culture. The Coen brothers reflected this distrust in Barton Fink, when the title […]
Preaching Brimstone in Camp Hell
By Cleaver Patterson. Camp Hell (2010) is not as the title may suggest an expose of the outer fringes of gay culture. What we have instead is something often anomalistic within the genre in which it comes – a horror film which attempts to be serious. Whether it succeeds or […]
A Desecrating Mirth: Ken Russell (1927-2011)
By Celluloid Liberation Front. ‘We don’t want to disrupt taxpayers from the benefit of cultural democracy, do we?’ (Museum Guard in Savage Messiah) British cinema lost with Ken Russell a vital antibody to its gangrenous pragmatism and aesthetic sclerosis. Russell’s imaginative exuberance has represented a refreshing if erratic presence within […]
The Man with the Video Camera: an interview with Alain Cavalier
By Santiago Rubín de Celis. The films by Alain Cavalier (born in Vendôme, France, in 1931) are the result of a process of slow, soft erosion. For more than fifty years – from his Nouvelle Vague-style short film Un Américain (‘An American’, 1958) to his 2009 feature, Irène, which is […]