By Rod Lott. Death aside, it’s a good time to be José Ramón Larraz. The Spanish director finally gets his due, a quarter-century after Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs made the case for it in their seminal book, Immoral Tales: European Sex and Horror Movies, 1956-1984. The seeds they planted […]
Wildlife: Family in the Dark
Christopher Sharrett
March 25, 2019
By Christopher Sharrett. Among the few films that impressed me last season was Paul Dano’s first film as director, Wildlife, based on a book (which I have not read) by Richard Ford. The film received some applause when it opened, then vanished, to be covered over by the rubbish […]
A “Spinster’s” Last Stand: Woman at War
Michael Sandlin
March 22, 2019
By Michael Sandlin. Icelandic director Benedikt Erlingsson, in his sophomore directorial effort Woman at War, imagines the chaos that ensues when a middle-aged spinster’s frustrated motherly instincts compete with her radical eco-political commitment to defeat her country’s pollution-friendly patriarchy. Much like Erlingsson’s bizarre equinophilic tale Of Horses and Men (2014), Woman […]
The Uncanny Invades: Jordan Peele’s Us
Matthew Sorrento
March 22, 2019
By Matthew Sorrento. The most unfortunate aspect of Jordan Peele’s Get Out was its creator’s attempt at self-criticism. Some months after the film’s release, Peele accepted an offer from Reddit to respond to member theories on the film. In the video, he is welcoming and down-to-earth but swiftly dismisses a theory […]
Idris at the Helm: Yardie
Ali Moosavi
March 14, 2019
By Ali Moosavi. The media have been so preoccupied with whether or not Idris Elba will become the next James Bond that somehow his first venture into directing, Yardie, has been kept largely under the radar. Yardie is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Victor Headley. […]
Welcome to the Universe: Captain Marvel
March 12, 2019
By Elias Savada. Packing a $153 million weekend wallop here in her home country, and a huge $455 million on her native planet, Captain Marvel, the latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, rallies itself after a sluggish start, and ultimately proves itself an acceptable crowdpleaser. Brie Larson, the Oscar-winning actor […]
Tradition Against Trafficking: Birds of Passage
Ali Moosavi
March 11, 2019
By Ali Moosavi. Films about drug trafficking in Central and South America have been on our cinema and TV screens almost continuously, from Scarface to Sicario. In recent years, there seems to have been more films and TV series about drug barons in Columbia and Mexico than any other topic; […]
What We’re Left with at the End: Jupiter’s Moon
John Duncan Talbird
March 7, 2019
By John Duncan Talbird. In the opening seconds of Kornél Mundruczó’s White God (2014), we see a bird’s-eye view of Budapest, but a Budapest absent any people. It’s reminiscent of the opening of Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later… (2002) where downtown London has been wiped clean of people from what […]
A Problem of Catharsis and Urban Space: Ondi Timoner’s Mapplethorpe
Mina Radovic
March 6, 2019
By Mina Radovic. Robert Mapplethorpe is one of New York’s famous black-and-white photographers of the 1970s: coming out after the Warhol generation and in touch with the underground, Mapplethorpe is remembered for his distinct use of monochrome composition, imbued with a sense of rigid formalism coupled with controversial and often […]
Deliberate Relief: Visconti’s Death in Venice (Criterion Collection)
February 26, 2019
By Gary M. Kramer. Death in Venice, Luchino Visconti’s sumptuous adaptation of the 1912 Thomas Mann novella, has been released on DVD and Blu-ray by the Criterion Collection in a new 4K digital restoration. The film is a classic story of unrequited love as Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde) becomes […]