By Matthew Fullerton. Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest drama, the Palme-d’Or-winning Shoplifters (Manbiki Kazoku), is the story of an out-of-the-ordinary family: Osamu Shibata (Lily Franky) is a middle-aged man who, though physically able to work, prefers supporting his family through petty crime. He plies his trade with the boy Shota […]
The Man Who Would Be Scar – Henry Brandon: King of the Bogeymen by Bill Cassara and Richard S. Greene
A Book Review by Tony Williams. In one way, my title is misleading. Despite the impressive appearance of Henry Brandon’s Scar appearing as an appropriate “monster from the id” with blue eyes and European presence to John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards in The Searchers (1956), this impressive labor of love, that could […]
More than Rippin’ or Rascality: Jonah Hill’s Mid90s
By Brandon Konecny. “My visceral reaction when I hear someone is making a movie about skateboarding is…I wish they [sic] wouldn’t,” says professional skateboarder Rodney Mullen. And his remarks are understandable. Aside from maybe Larry Clark’s Kids (1995), skateboarding has never fared well in narrative cinema, usually serving as an […]
Rebirth: Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria
By Janine Gericke. In 1977, Italian horror legend Dario Argento released Suspiria – a seminal classic among horror fans and cinephiles. Luca Guadagnino, whose Call Me by Your Name won raves last year, has made a compelling albeit head-scratching homage to the original film. Taking place in 1977 Berlin, a young woman joins […]
Struggling Adrift: The Raft (Flotten)
By Daniel Lindvall. In May 1973 six women and five men set out from the Canary Islands to cross the Atlantic to Mexico in a twelve by seven metres large raft, the Acali. The ungainly vessel was made of wood, steel and glass, and equipped with a sail but no […]
The Sweet, Swedish Smell of Fear: Border
November 25, 2018
By Elias Savada. Scandinavian folklore is home to dozens of curious creatures. Trolls, dwarves, and elves might be the ones most of us on the eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean recall on a regular basis. It’s a natural progression that movies and television have appropriated these supernatural beings, particularly in […]
Art Loving Criminals: Ruben Brandt, Collector
By Martin Kudláč. The Locarno International Film Festival has a notorious sweet spot, Piazza Grande, one of the biggest squares in Switzerland where it is hosting open-air night screenings for over 8000 viewers. It is not just tourists´ landmark empillared with traditional arcades but also a programming one where a carefully […]
Rehistoricizing the Gaze – Elena Gorfinkel’s Lewd Looks: American Sexploitation Cinema in the 1960s
November 20, 2018
A Book Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. There’s a shared lightning bolt moment I’ve discussed at length with many other film critics and academics – mostly (although certainly not only) women – where in our university undergraduate years we were first rocked by the realization that there was a whole body […]
Born to Kill: El Angel
By Michael Sandlin. Director Luis Ortega’s El Angel (co-produced by Pedro Almodovar) is a quietly disturbing but ultimately unsatisfying character study based on real-life 1970s Argentinian teen serial killer Carlos Robaldo Puch. Puch’s good looks and high intelligence defied the then-accepted image of the serial murderer as scraggly failed-hippie eyesore. […]
A Formidable Pairing: Green Book
November 15, 2018
By Elias Savada. The exceptionally crisp performances by Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen are but two of the great things about Green Book, a very solid contender for Best Picture accolades, and much more. This heartwarming, soul searching inspired-by-a-true-story features well-educated virtuoso pianist Don Shirley (Ali) and his Italian-American chauffeur-protector-confidant Tony Villelonga […]