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 […]
Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
By Steven Harrison Gibbs. In October of 2009, Lionsgate’s protracted Saw franchise was nearing its end. With the sixth installment marking the lowest point of its steadily diminishing returns, it was all too apparent that horror fans were growing weary of Jigsaw and his elaborate, grotesquely violent traps. Meanwhile, Paramount […]
She Monkeys (2011)
By Salomon Rogberg. Swedish film director Lisa Aschan has said that a western is about sex, power and animals, but also what it means to be a man. In She Monkeys (2011) men are replaced with women, there’s no explicit and bloody violence or any sex, but the story is driven […]
Melancholia (2011)
By Janine Gericke. Lars von Trier’s Melancholia opens with an achingly slow motion shot of Kirsten Dunst, looking drenched and disturbed as birds tumble from the sky behind her. As the audience stares, hushed and humbled, Wagner’s Tristan and Islode – brought to life by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra – saturates the scene. This is the end […]
The Future (2011)
By Jacob Mertens. When we are young, we are told that we can do anything with our lives. We feel our path unfold before us, a wide expanse of possibility. However, as we get older that very freedom can become frightening, and we yearn for something calm and simple. In […]
Drive (2011)
By Jacob Mertens. Moving towards an aggressive theater launch, Drive has featured a lot of dizzying, full throttle marketing ploys that suggest Hollywood escapist thrills. The poster is all grit and masculine energy, Rotten Tomatoes has posted an interview claiming that Drive is Ryan Gosling’s “superhero movie”[1], and the trailers […]
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 […]
A Documentary History of Swedish Metal
By Anna Arnman. Så jävla metal (which translates as ‘So damned metal’) is a Swedish documentary about the nation’s heavy metal scene, from the early 1970s until now. It is based on hundreds of interviews with bands and performers like November, Neon Rose, Europe, Yngwie Malmsteen, Arch Enemy and In […]