By Elias Savada. Auteur provocateur Ruben Östlund loves to pick at society’s scabs – and make you laugh and writhe at any unsettling pus that oozes out. As with the squirm-inducing Force Majeure (2014), the Swedish writer-director’s funny-sad journey into middleclass smugness, The Square, his latest bourgeois boil being lanced, viewers […]
Documenting the Final Days: Waiting for Kiarostami
November 6, 2017
By Ali Moosavi. Abbas Kiarostami’s passing in 2016 deprived the lovers of the 7th art of his unique blend of documentary and fiction, real and imaginary and left a very large void in Iranian and world cinema. Waiting for Kiarostami is the second tribute to the late master made after his death. […]
Two of a Kind: Faces Places
November 3, 2017
By Jeremy Carr. Once you accept and appreciate the superficial contrast between Agnès Varda (a legendary filmmaker, diminutive, inspirationally enthusiastic if rigid by age — she is pushing 90, after all) and JR (tall, lanky, young and mobile, a quintessentially hip modern artist), the rest of Faces Places begins to comfortably […]
It’s All About the (Many) Details – 78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene
By Elias Savada. I can’t remember the first time I saw Psycho. I was a 10-year-old kid when Alfred Hitchcock’s menacing tale made more than a few people start avoiding motels. (Keep telling yourself: It’s only a motel! It’s only a motel!) The film wasn’t the kind of thriller my suburban […]
Critique with Some Scopophilia: Gestures of Love by Steven Rybin
November 1, 2017
A Book Review by Anthony Uzarowski. “Anybody got a match?” Who doesn’t remember the first time they heard Lauren Bacall utter these words; the first time they, along with Humphrey Bogart, laid their eyes on her in To Have and Have Not. Did we fall under her spell in the very […]
Blade of the Immortal: Where Jidaigeki and Manga Collide
By Matthew Fullerton. Takashi Miike isn’t one to shy away from pushing the boundaries of existing genres and teasing his audiences while promoting and screening his films. Take his horror masterpiece Audition (1999). Its narrative meanders along with a gentle story of loss, loneliness, and a search for love before […]
The Florida Project: Childhood in Time of War
By Christopher Sharrett. Occasionally, the Hollywood industry produces a film that notes the poverty flowing from the neoliberal order, as a “permanent underclass” becomes no more than journalistic jargon taken for granted with a shrug by those sectors of the public who need to pay attention. I think of Kelly […]
Amplified Isolation: It Takes from Within
October 25, 2017
By Gary M. Kramer. The wordless pre-credit sequence of It Takes from Within sets the tone for this stark, atmospheric drama: three couples crawl, stand, and lie in a bed on an illuminated patch of grass. Gorgeously filmed in luminous black and white, the sequences does not make much sense, […]
Flight to Salvation: The King’s Choice
October 18, 2017
By Jake Rutkowski. About twenty minutes into The King’s Choice, it hits me: I know absolutely nothing about Norway’s political history. Nor its governmental structure. Nor its involvement in World War II. Nothing. While there are some informational title cards at the start of the film, I found myself bereft of […]
Oneiric Noir: The Chase (1946) from Kino Lorber
By Tony Williams. Based on Cornell Woolrich’s 1944 novel The Black Path of Fear, The Chase (1946) has long required a remastered DVD version though bootleg versions previously available may have added to its reputation as a darker shade of noir appropriately associated with its creative source. It was directed […]