By Elias Savada. A raw journey into immersive filmmaking, asking for a wide berth when it comes to social ethics.” With over half-a-million homeless people in the United States today, most folks treat them as a plague. Some toss a few coins or dollars their way when they’re panhandling at […]
Victims Performing the Victimized: Houman Seyyedi’s World War Three
By Ali Moosavi. With the rather unsure state of the Iranian cinema at the moment, it remains to be seen what the future holds for WWIII and its talented director.” I have been a fan of the young Iranian filmmaker Houman Seyyedi ever since I saw his sophomore directing feature […]
Mad Love: Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave (2022)
By James Slaymaker. Decision to Leave builds a sense of tragic weight more potent than anything else in Chan-wook’s oeuvre.” Park Chan-wook’s new film, Decision to Leave, may appear at first glance to be an uncharacteristically straight police procedural drama. Its set-up is pure pulp: Hae-jun (Park Hae-il) is a […]
A Quality Melodramatic Framework: The Americans (FX, 2013-2018) by Linda Mizejewski
By Ken Hall. A key to the innovative nature of this series, according to Mizejewski, is its presentation of espionage thriller elements within ‘domestic melodrama.’” The compelling television series The Americans (FX, 2013-18) is presented as a landmark example of “quality” television production in this fine study. In her new […]
Archival Detective Work – Three Minutes: A Lengthening
By Elias Savada. Not your conventional Holocaust documentary…. Fragments get incessantly replayed, slowed down, reversed, enlarged, and otherwise altered to sniff out clues and provide context, sometimes agonizingly so.” This genealogical gumshoe of a documentary starts with three-plus minutes of silent home movie footage, accompanied only by the sound of […]
Far from These Shores: Guy Maddin’s Tales from the Gimli Hospital (Redux)(1988)
By Thomas M. Puhr. This 64-minute fever dream exudes a confidence and singularity of vision rarely seen in debuts.” Angels float in an ink black sky. The camera descends from these heavens, past wispy clouds, and settles at street level, where a spotlight shines on the entrance sign to Gimli […]
A Truth Universally Acknowledged: Mr. Malcom’s List (Emma Holly Jones, 2022)
By Theresa Rodewald. Not every film has to reinvent the formula and for some viewers, Mr. Malcom’s List, with its delightful performances, will be the perfect film for a rainy day or a cozy movie night with friends. Those viewers looking for a more daring approach to the period drama […]
Regeneration in Tokyo: Masashi Yamamoto’s Robinson’s Garden (1987)
By Thomas M. Puhr. A true lost classic, one which should find the wider audience it so richly deserves.” Kani Releasing’s best offering to date, Masashi Yamamoto’s Robinson’s Garden (Robinson no niwa, 1987) is a revelation, the type of overlooked gem that blasts any modest expectations you might have for […]
Innate Contradiction, and Curious Amalgam of Stereotype: Lena Dunham’s Sharp Stick (2022)
By Yun-hua Chen. Entertaining, and sexy for what it sets out to do, but if Hannah Horvath in Girls could self-assuredly declare herself ‘the voice of a generation,’ Sarah Jo in Sharp Stick wrestles to find a coherent voice of any kind.” The director, actor, and showrunner Lena Dunham, famous […]
The Discomfort of Strangers: Christian Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil (2022)
By Thomas M. Puhr. More akin to an ancient tragedy – one that looks unflinchingly at the terrible depths to which all-too-human people can sink.” Horrible things happen in Christian Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil (2022), but it is not really a horror film. Like Salò (1975) or Martyrs (2008), it […]