By Ali Moosavi. The majority of films occupying the cinema screens in Iran belong to either of two genres: social dramas and comedies. The Iran-Czech Republic joint production, Son – Mother (Pesar – Madar, 2019) which premiered at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, at first appears to be a […]
The Magic Bullet that Is Jim Allison: Breakthrough
Elias Savada
October 7, 2019
By Elias Savada. Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson, please step aside…at least for 91 minutes…and allow the world to shine a light on a man unknown to most of us, but who wholeheartedly deserves our attention and admiration. He’s not your big name science guy and probably doesn’t contemplate […]
Redemption through Chaos: Takashi Miike’s First Love (2019)
Matthew Fullerton
October 4, 2019
By Matthew Fullerton. First Love (Hatsukoi), prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike’s sixtieth film in twenty-four years according to last count, is a wild and fun night-time ride through an urban war between Japanese and Chinese gangsters. Although First Love marks a full-fledged return for Miike to the Asian mafia genre, […]
Handsomely Treating Dirty Deeds: Where’s My Roy Cohn?
Michael Sandlin
October 3, 2019
By Michael Sandlin. Since 2016, documentaries about influential far-right sociopaths have been on the uptick, having become almost an industry within an industry: Roger Stone, Roger Ailes, Steve Bannon, and Donald Trump have all been subjects of this recent outburst of nonfictional cinematic activism. All of the aforementioned far-right figures […]
Synchronic Is Kangaroo Shit Loony
Elias Savada
October 2, 2019
By Elias Savada. H.G. Wells, move over. In the century-and-a-quarter since his science fiction novella popularized the notion of time travel, the theme of moving back and forth through a temporal vortex, fourth dimensional rupture, or other weird-sounding description has fascinated us. Whether long term and short visits to the […]
Making America Dumb Again: The Death of Dick Long
Elias Savada
September 26, 2019
By Elias Savada. There’s a swarth of idiocy running through this so-called dark comedy, but for the most part it fails at being what I had hoped for: funny. Plenty of drollness, though that falls flat, too. Director Daniel Schienert (half of the team known as the Daniels, who made […]
Wild Women and the Great Karoo: Jenna Bass’s Flatland (Toronto International Film Festival)
September 24, 2019
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. South African filmmaker Jenna Bass has made somewhat of a splash with her third film, Flatland, as it makes its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival after it opened the Panorama section of the Berlinale earlier this year. Aside from previous features Love the One […]
Bringing the Magic To Her Music: Linda Ronstadt – The Sound of My Voice
Elias Savada
September 23, 2019
By Elias Savada. No, Linda Ronstadt is not dead. While Parkinson’s Disease has sadly removed her from the public and concert stage for over a decade, the joy of her music is heartwarmingly captured in this greatest-hits-and-more salute from award-winning filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. The extraordinarily talented artist, […]
A Young Woman’s Noble Fight: Ms. Purple
Yun-hua Chen
September 22, 2019
By Yun-hua Chen. Justin Chon, the American actor of Korean descent who made his name since his role as Eric in The Twilight Saga a decade ago, has established an increasingly distinct directorial voice addressing Asian-American stories and strikes a chord with ethnic minorities who rarely enter the mainstream in […]
Hitler is Not Your Friend: Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit (Toronto International Film Festival)
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
September 19, 2019
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. With its world premiere at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit functions as the final installment of the filmmaker’s informal trilogy that focuses on the subjective experience of boyhood. In 2010’s Boy, the eponymous protagonist is an 11-year-old played by James Rolleston, while in 2016’s […]