By Amy R Handler. Quentin Dupieux’ (a/k/a musician, Mr. Oizo) newest feature about a rogue tire-turned-serial killer and obsessed stalker, is everything cinema should be, but more often is not. A TIRE? you ask. Yes. You heard correctly, and believe it or not there’s enough in this 82-minute powerhouse to […]
Inner Realism, Danish Style
By Amy R Handler. Many filmmakers have explored the inner world of performers, but few do it as masterfully as Danish director Martin Zandvliet (Angels of Brooklyn). Teamed with actor extraordinaire, Paprika Steen (Okay), their feature Applause (Applaus, 2009) is nothing short of remarkable. Told from the perspective of Thea […]
When We Leave (2010)
By Amy R Handler. When We Leave (Die Fremde, 2010) is a simple art house drama that packs a huge socio-political wallop. It is one of those rare and tricky films where all its component parts seem to work against each other, but really move as fluidly as a well […]
Darkness in Detroit: Vanishing on 7th Street
By Amy R Handler. Perhaps it’s no small coincidence that Canadian Horror King, Brad Anderson’s Vanishing on 7th Street (2010) takes place in Detroit, Michigan. Once considered the automotive Mecca of the world, the great Motown is now the most economically crippled city in the United States. Not surprisingly, the […]
A Raid on Nothing: Genre and Polanski’s Cul-de-sac
By Matthew Sorrento. Knife in the Water was a rare kind of debut. The 1962 Polish film brought Roman Polanski international acclaim, earning him an Academy Award nomination and a spot on the cover of Time magazine, where the release represented a new wave of foreign cinema. The accolades were […]
Just Doing It: an interview with Emily James
By Deirdre O’Neill. Emily James is an independent documentary filmmaker and producer who has worked in both television and film and whose work deals with contemporary political issues. Her latest film Just Do It: A Tale of Modern-Day Outlaws (released in the UK in July 2011) is both an intervention […]
Drive, or the Hero in Eclipse
By Christopher Sharrett. It seems to me that Danish director Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive (2011) is an important film (it is too soon to say if it is anything like a great one), at the very least for its sense of the fading, threatened male hero as a representation of […]
Saving London’s Cinema Museum: From Hammer to Chainsaw – Horror of the Sixties and Seventies
By Deirdre O’Neill. The horror film genre has never enjoyed the respectable status of other genres such as the western or the thriller, rather, it has, to a greater or lesser extent, remained the property of the committed fan and cult film devotee. Indeed, one of the pleasures in watching […]
The Secret World of Arrietty
By Anna Arnman. Arrietty is Studio Ghibli’s latest film, based on Mary Norton’s novel The Borrowers from 1952. Arrietty belongs to the four-inch tall Clock family who lives anonymously in another, ‘big’, family’s residence and their home is a collection of things they have borrowed from the big world. Arrietty […]
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
By Jamie Isbell. In 2008 Tomas Alfredson lit up the vampire genre. His collaboration with author John Ajvide Lindqvist on Let The Right One In broke away the formulaic mist surrounding the vampire flicks that had occupied decades of cinema, and replaced it with a terrifying breath of reality. It […]