By Elias Savada. One way or another, I always seem to get a plastic high when watching a film with an old fashioned record store. High Fidelity (2000), Empire Records (1995), Ghost World (2001), and even Last Shop Standing, Pip Piper 2012’s documentary about the rise and fall of about two […]
In Awe of Everything: The Gospel According to André
June 8, 2018
By Janine Gericke. I’ll start by saying that The Gospel According to André is a delightful film about a delightful human. The film is enthralling and made me laugh out loud at many points, which I wasn’t exactly expecting. One particular scene involving Isabella Rossellini’s two pigs, Boris and Pepe, […]
The Feminist Battle for Respect – The Girl: Marilyn Monroe, The Seven Year Itch, and the Birth of an Unlikely Feminist by Michelle Morgan
June 7, 2018
A Book Review by Anthony Uzarowski. Whenever one sets out to write a book about a real-life person, be it a traditional biography or any other kind of study or retrospective, the question of ethics inevitably comes to the forefront. How does one do justice to a life and work […]
Arthouse Redux: Claire’s Camera
June 4, 2018
By Elias Savada. I’m a latecomer to the work of South Korean filmmaker Hong Sangsoo, but I recently caught Night and Day (2004) and Right Now, Wrong Then (2015), which reveal this Seoul-born and Korean-then-American-trained filmmaker’s unconventional, character-driven films as interesting and sometimes forceful human studies (as well as being festival […]
Mountain: Epic to the Extreme
May 31, 2018
By Elias Savada. The word “breathtaking” doesn’t do justice to Australian documentarian Jennifer Peedom’s Mountain. It’s so far beyond that. The manner of the imposing photography, which often suggests someone climbing upside down, is just one of the remarkable things about this emotionally driven exploration of the majesty of rock. What […]
Mungiu’s Deceptive Simplicity: Beyond the Hills (Criterion Collection)
By Christopher Sharrett. I have commented on this site at length on Cristian Mungiu’s masterpiece Beyond the Hills (2012), and while it deserves thorough revaluation, I will note merely its importance by way of a remark on its Blu-ray release by Criterion. It is worth saying that this is the […]
Bumpy Origins – Solo: A Star Wars Story
May 24, 2018
By Elias Savada, In a galaxy far, far away, veteran multi-hyphenate filmmaker Ron Howard has directed Solo with a sure, reliable hand, cobbling together the second standalone Star Wars Story (following 2016’s Rogue One) for a bumpy journey into thousands of multiplexes. This Han Solo origin story (the first for anyone associated […]
Frustratingly Real: Disobedience
By Janine Gericke. Sebastián Lelio’s Disobedience is a frustrating film. Not because of poor performances or a meandering story, but because it’s so real. Based on the novel by Naomi Alderman, the story centers on two lovers who are pulled apart by their community and religion. The circumstances are heartbreaking, […]
Beyond the Surface: Cinema’s Baroque Flesh by Saige Walton
A Book Review by Jeremy Carr. Through the course of Cinema’s Baroque Flesh: Film, Phenomenology and the Art of Entanglement (Amsterdam University Press, 2016), author Saige Walton promotes several fascinating concepts. The originating contention is that cinema is a medium ideally suited to sensory manipulation and expansion, an evolving process […]
A Beautiful Crash Course – Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat
By Janine Gericke. Clocking in at a cool 78 minutes, Sara Driver’s documentary Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat is a Basquiat crash course. The film provides insight into the teenager he was and the artist he became. Named after Basquiat’s catchphrase, Boom for Real uses […]