Review

By Elias Savada. Science Fair, the new National Geographic documentary, follows the audience-pleasing formula easily recognizable in its predecessors. There are many fans of Spellbound (2002), an enlightening race to the top of the Scripps National Spelling Bee; Mad Hot Ballroom (2005), which chronicled schoolkids in New York City vying for a […]

A Book Review by Alex Brannan. Steven Gerrard’s The Modern British Horror Film (Rutgers University Press, 2017) is a slim, pocketbook-sized volume. It is part of the Quick Takes series, which provides “succinct overviews” of distinct avenues of cinema. While entries in this series are at least partially summative in […]

By Alex Ramon. Without a doubt, the biggest Polish cinematic success of the past decade has been Paweł Pawlikowski’s 2013 film Ida. Feted first at Toronto, the film went on to win acclaim and awards at numerous high-profile international events, culminating in the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film (Poland’s first) […]

By Janine Gericke. Based on the novel by Penelope Fitzgerald, Isabel Coixet’s The Bookshop takes place in a conservative coastal village in 1950’s England (though the backdrop is actually Northern Ireland). Florence Green (Emily Mortimer) is a widow who moves to the seaside town to follow her dream of opening […]

By Alex Brannan. A quick search into the work of Rene Daalder yields an interesting array of artistic pieces varied in concept, medium, and scope. The writer, director, and digital effects artist has worked with various musical acts such as Devo and Supertramp. In his early days, he was a frequent […]

By Janine Gericke. How do we balance work, family, friends, everything in our lives without breaking? This relatable film is a study of working class America with echoes of the #MeToo movement and discrimination in the workplace. Director Andrew Bujalski’s newest film Support the Girls is an entertaining look into […]

By John Duncan Talbird. New Zealand’s short-lived new wave came quite a bit after most other national cinemas’ new waves. Kick-started by the New Zealand Film Commission with tax breaks for filmmakers, it fell apart just a few years later when those tax loopholes were closed up again. Geoff Murphy (Wild […]

By Janine Gericke. Skate Kitchen is director Crystal Moselle’s first narrative feature following her 2015 documentary The Wolfpack. I knew in the first five minutes that I was going to love this movie, and I absolutely did. Moselle has created a kind of lyrical poem, about New York, about skateboarding, about growing up, […]

By Elizabeth Toohey. Sometimes, on my weirder, darker days, I fantasize about being the architect of a purgatory. There, I would place Mark Zuckerberg – who has lately said he sees no need to take down Holocaust denials posted on Facebook because, you know, “there are things that different people […]