By Michael Sandlin. ‘The election of President Reagan in 1980 initiated a mass transfer of wealth and power away from ordinary Americans’ intones Kristof in his voiceover; of course, what Kristof doesn’t tell you is that many of these ‘ordinary’ Americans voted for Reagan, thus essentially voting away their own […]
The Inferno and its Impact: Hideo Sekigawa’s Hiroshima
By Jeremy Carr. A key aspect of Sekigawa’s 1953 docu-drama concerns the related discrimination leveled against victims (of leukemia, the “A-bomb disease”), based largely on ignorance and misinformation, but on a broader level, the film also focuses on the wide-ranging scars left etched upon the Japanese populace.” Hideo Sekigawa’s Hiroshima […]
Wo Wo We Wa!: Pranks, Satire, and Bathroom Humor Endure in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
By Elias Savada. Forget the news about the Russians doing their worst to screw up the coming election, because we have Uzbekistan’s secret weapon. And there’s nothing Trump, Putin, or all those conservative, right-wing Yankees can do about it. Borat‘s back in town.” Mockumentarians make way for another gatecrashing excursion […]
Frustration in Falfurrias: Lisa Molomot and Jeffrey Bemiss’s Missing in Brooks County
By Elias Savada. The film examines, sometimes in gruesome detail, the unfortunate migrant disappearances and deaths that have occurred in this eponymous region of Texas, about an hour’s drive from the Mexican border….” I’ve watched a lot of documentaries through the years. Among those that make me mad: Blackfish (2013), […]
Destined to Be Forgotten: Mark Williams’s Honest Thief
By Elias Savada. Neeson does the job he’s paid to do, and his gruff role here hits the intended spots and one-liners… but Honest Thief gets too cute for its own unbelievable good.” Want some generic escapist entertainment? All you have to do is catch the latest Liam Neeson framed-man […]
Possessor and the Tortured Soul of Brandon Cronenberg
By Elias Savada. This is a brutal horror film and not for youngsters, no matter how much it succeeds in its weird Freaky Friday way.” Recently, business visionary Elon Musk talked about one of his latest science projects, a Neuralink brain implant to “supercharge human communication.” Except there’s already a […]
Sad and Blue, Shiny and New: Daria Woszek’s Marygoround (Maryjki) (2020)
By Alex Ramon. The film by and large succeeds in putting “women’s different experience” centre screen.” “A passionate lover will fulfil your deepest desires. This week the world is yours. You will be the queen of your life. Don’t be afraid to be daring…” The recitation of a florid horoscope, […]
Remember When I Killed You, Darling? Darren Lynn Bousman’s Death of Me
By Thomas Puhr. Wicker Man retreads can be a lot of fun…. but Bousman lacks the compositional sophistication of an Ari Aster or the confrontational gender politics of a LaBute.” A husband and wife vacationing in Thailand wake up bruised, muddied, and lacking any memory of how they got back […]
A Rom-Com About Disconnecting…and an Alien Invasion: Alex Fischer and Eleanor Wilson’s Save Yourselves!
By Elias Savada. Well-crafted even for its seemingly lowish budget, the movie is a doozy of a down-to-earth apocalypse farce.” For American filmmaker Alex H. Fischer, the road from avant-garde short films to arthouse feature stretches but four years, although his commercial and music video work dates back at least […]
When Asylum’s Regained: Eva Mulvad’s Love Child (TIFF 2020)
By Ali Moosavi. Love Child is not so much a story about refugees and asylum seekers…. This is a film about love triumphing above all adversaries.” The subject of asylum seekers has come to the fore in recent years with refugees from war torn countries fleeing to the west and […]