Review

By Janine Gericke. Lizzie Borden’s infamous story is horrifying. On August 4, 1892, Borden’s father and stepmother were found bludgeoned to death in their home in Fall River, Massachusetts. Lizzie was arrested for the crime, but ultimately acquitted. According to the end credits of Craig William Macneill’s  Lizzie, the all-male […]

By Elias Savada. Alex Honnold dreams the impossible dream, and he climbs where the brave dare not go. Unlike Don Quixote, he defies death by climbing mountains of sheer granite. Without a rope. Free solo climbing is a solitary affair that is exhilarating to the extreme. A single misstep generally proves […]

By Jeremy Carr. Street Mobster found director Kinji Fukasaku at a pivotal point in his career, a situation reflected in the evolution of a genre he had so effectively worked to fashion. Fukasaku made his directorial debut in 1961, with the Sonny Chiba-starring Fûraibô tantei: Akai tani no sangeki, and from […]

By Alex Brannan. If one were to just slightly retool Phillip Guzman’s Sleep No More (aka 200 Hours) – eliminate the gore and profanity, shift the characters’ ages, move the time period back a couple decades, and make the least consequential character a canine – the film could easily pass […]

By Elias Savada. Hal (no relation to the sentient computer in Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey), is a reflective meditation on the (high) life and (best) films of Hal Ashby, a director of note during the 1970s, when he churned out award-worthy films that now shape this debut documentary […]

A Book Review by Thomas Puhr. For many, the term “avant-garde” is synonymous with pretension: a sub-subgenre that revels in its impenetrability and niche appeal. One of Paul Taberham’s overarching goals in Lessons in Perception: The Avant-Garde Filmmaker as Practical Psychologist (Berghan Books, 2018) is to negate this misconception; experimental filmmakers […]

A Book Review by Alex Brannan. For those experiencing a Jess Franco film for the first time, the response is unlikely to be an academic one. Known predominantly for horror and erotica films, Franco’s filmography is often relegated under the umbrella of trash cinema. His preoccupations with the female form, […]

By Elias Savada. The crazy wait-who-did-what? mystery that is A Simple Favor offers up a pair of smooth, subversive, suburban housewives that spin some sparkling dialogue off each other and their communal parental units. Mystery loves the company of Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively in Paul Feig’s head-spinning, twisty-turvy tale of […]

By Ali Moosavi. Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has had a rapid rise in the last few years to become one of the A-List festivals alongside Cannes, Venice and Berlin. Many films from different corners of the world have their world or international premiere there. Angel (Un Ange), directed by […]