In running a tiny drive-in, I found over time that people were not coming for new releases or even often caring that it was an old movie, they wanted a special movie experience. This got me thinking about how to customize the experience of going to the cinema, horror and […]
Notes on Anatole Litvak’s City for Conquest (1940) and the Tough Vulnerability of James Cagney
By Theresa Rodewald. City for Conquest revitalizes the sports drama formula: losing does not break Danny.” Danny is a truck driver, a boxer, a brother to Eddie (Arthur Kennedy) and a boyfriend to Peggy (Ann Sheridan). He drives a truck to earn money, to pay the rent and put food […]
Drive Away Dolls: On a Goofy Coen Road Comedy
By Elias Savada. Gags and pratfalls ensue, many funny and more than a few blush-worthy as the film speeds through its brief 84-minute running time.” Sure, we’ve been conditioned over the last 40 years that you can’t have one Coen (brother) without the other. Two peas in a pod. Ethan […]
Environmental Action in Opposite Directions: Extinction (2019) and Guardians of Life (2020)
By Dávid Szőke and Sándor Kiss. While Extinction and Guardians of Life declare “nonviolent open rebellion” and the urge to action for the survival of our natural world, the divergence between their stated ideals and their disruptive tactics in shaping public understanding of climate-related issues point toward starkly opposite directions.” […]
Movie Theaters Need to Win Us Back
By Gary D. Rhodes. Movie theaters must do more work to ensure that we are seeing unique content, not films that are already streaming or will be within a few weeks. And this means being clever, because movie theaters can show far more than just movies. (Thank you, Taylor Swift!)” […]
Teddy Co and the Regional Remapping of Philippine Cinema: An Obituary
By Paul Douglas Grant. Saying goodbye to this luminary figure, we know his legacy endures through the flourishing diversity and dynamism within the Filipino film landscape, in all its vernacular forms.” On November 1, 2023, the Filipino film community faced a profound loss as Teddy Co, a powerful influence on […]
Taking Risks for the Sake of Cinema in Iran: Celluloid Underground and Achilles
By Ali Moosavi. Both these films show the lengths their makers have gone, the enormous risks they’ve taken, all for the sake of cinema.” Two films made by Iranian directors have at least one thing in common: they both show the deep, undying passion that many Iranians have for cinema. […]
The Amazing Elasticity of Neo-Noir: Silent as the Grave (2023)
By William Blick. Shows the glory of the ever-independent neo-noir film that will be around for a long time.” For me, neo-noir reemerged effectively with Blue Ruin, an underrated Coen brother-esque film that was buzzing around in 2010’s era at the Hampton Film Festival, where I happened to see it. […]
The Father of the Iranian New Wave: Dariush Mehrjui, 1939-2023
By Ali Moosavi. The discovery of the groundbreaking filmmaker’s body with that of his wife in their home, both stabbed, on Saturday, 14 October (found by their daughter), has sent a shockwave throughout the film community at a troubling time…. The news item was brief: the bodies of the Iranian […]
Recent Contemporary Protest Cinema and Political-Cultural Exoticism
By Hamed Soleimanzadeh. By bringing attention to the challenges of the surrounding world, exotic protest cinema encourages audiences to take responsibility against the injustices and inefficiencies.” The concept of political-cultural exoticism in protest cinema refers to the presentation and understanding of ethnic, national, and regional cultures and policies in films […]