Review

By William Repass.   “Just as a flower does not choose its color, we are not responsible for who we come to be. Only once you realize this do you become free. And to become adult…is to become free.” A girl with hair like spilled ink sits alone at her desk, […]

By Matthew Sorrento. While viewing the new 3D IMAX version of The Wizard of Oz, I didn’t notice anything different in the film’s central color portion. The hues are warm, just like the experience of viewing among first timers who are lucky enough to see it on the big screen. […]

By Cleaver Patterson.  Watching the work of German animator Lotte Reiniger, one thing is clear above all else: the magical shadow plays, which were her favorite medium, are perfectly suited to a world of fantasy and make-believe, as seen in her masterpiece The Adventures of Prince Achmed, newly released by […]

By Luke Buckle.  The Dardenne brothers return with another realist-documentary style film, this time depicting eleven year old protagonist Cyril (Thomas Doret) and the disruption to his life after his father (Jérémie Renier) abandoned him, leaving him at a foster home in Seraing. Winning the Grand Prix at the 2011 […]

By John A. Riley.  Keisuke Kinoshita’s colorful elegy The Ballad of Narayama deals with ubasute, the apparently apocryphal Japanese practice of abandoning elderly relatives to the elements, and about which many legends exist. In a village in the Shinano mountains, where food is scarce, we are introduced to Orin, an […]

By Moira Sullivan.  The award at the 70th Venice Film Festival called the “Special Orizzonti Award for Innovative Content” went to Shahram Mokri’s Mahi Va Gorbeh (Fish and Cat). The Orrizzonti (Horizons) category features work that takes cinema into new directions. This is well exemplified by acclaimed Iranian writer-director’s amazing […]

By Moira Sullivan.  Eastern Boys, directed by Robin Campillo, won best film in the 70th Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti section. The film offers a complex and provocative narrative about a young gang of East European undocumented immigrants who plunder a middle-aged man (Olivier Rabourdin) after he tries to pick up one of […]

By Wheeler Winston Dixon. Hannah Fidell’s debut feature A Teacher has been getting something of a critical drubbing in the media since it opened on Friday September 6 in Manhattan; and yet it seems to me that the movie is remarkably successful in a small, quiet way. I also notice […]

By Brandon Konecny. As a child of the nineties, I narrowly evaded much of the cultural sterility of the preceding decade. Sure, we had the unfortunate instances of the “Macarena” and Yugoslav Wars (as well as the profound ineffectiveness of the industrial world to respond appropriately); but after watching Alex […]

By Cleaver Patterson.  Some films have, since their first release, entered into the realms of mythical cinema. Whether due to their technical achievements, performances or simply by dint of that inexplicable quality that makes the film viewing experience magical, these movies have outlived their contemporaries to become the stuff of […]