Review

By Elias Savada. In the quaint, historic town of Kells in County Meath, home to Ireland’s only independent documentary film festival, it seems rather fitting that this is also the locale of School Life, a year-in-the-life exploration of Headfort School, a unique, unconventional primary-age boarding school. This 18th-century estate is where […]

By Jeremy Carr. There was no plan to launch an annual undertaking where the residents of Monticchiello, a small Tuscan village, would enact theatrical renderings of their own lives in an open-air piazza performance. According to the neighborly troupe’s director, Andrea Cresti, it happened purely by chance. In any event, here […]

By Elias Savada. Memory loss and Queen of Hearts madness team up against a you-shouldn’t-play-with-Mother-Nature anti-hero in Anti Matter, an ambitious and entertaining sci-fi effort from director-writer Keir Burrows. He’s a South African-born, U.K.-based filmmaker who has decided that a his feature debut would journey to (Alice in) Wonderland. Burrows has […]

A Book Review by Tony Williams. Barrett Hodsdon is an unfamiliar name to me, chiefly because I do not reside in Australia. However, like Victor Perkins, he seems to have written few works but when he has they are characterized by rigorous observations, well-thought-out arguments, and distinguished research. He has […]

By Brandon Konecny.  Pavel Cuzuioc is a filmmaker with a flair for creating thoughtful meditations on working-class people, and he doesn’t diverge from this course in his recent documentary Secondo Me (2016), which concerns three employees at different European opera houses. Given its settings and Italian title (which means “in […]

By Jeremy Carr. There are bound to be comparisons made between Tarik Saleh’s The Nile Hilton Incident and several films of the past. Understandably so. This 2017 thriller, a multinational coproduction, has the embittered cynicism of Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974) and the seedy city view of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976), […]

A Book Review by Louis J. Wasser. I once confessed to a friend that, despite my preoccupation with serious film, I remained guilty of sporting an unabashed crush on Ava Gardner. While I’d never deluded myself that she possessed the superb talents of, say, French actor Simone Signoret or American […]

By Tony Williams. Since the inclusion of a co-written article by Tom Flinn and John Davis in the pre-David Bordwell University of Wisconsin-Madison era of The Velvet Light Trap (in an issue titled “Forbidden, Forgotten, Neglected and Unlucky Films”), Michael Curtiz’s The Breaking Point (1950) has been relatively neglected until […]

By James Churchill. Nobody forgets the first time they experienced Hayworth’s sudden emergence from the bottom of the frame in Gilda. The quick snap of the head that sends her hair in orbit, the calculated smirk, and the snarky, one-word response that lets us know right away who she cares most […]

A Book Review by Brad Cook. For many film fans, myself included, the name Roger Corman typically evokes an immediate response: That guy who makes schlocky movies quickly and cheaply and throws them out there to make a few bucks. Anyone who’s also a fan of the show Mystery Science Theater […]