Review

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 […]

By Elias Savada. In a lovely, earth-toned Long Island beach house, Walter Lancaster (Jon Hamm) comes and goes in rather disconcerting fashion. He doesn’t use the door or walk in from another room. He’s just…there. He doesn’t eat much, either. In fact, nothing at all. Then again, he’s just a […]

By Tony Williams. Like Alejandro Jodorowsky’s recently released Endless Poetry (2016) and Samantha Fuller’s tribute to her late father A Fuller Life (2013), the DVD restoration of one of Marion Davies’s most notable films is indebted to those legion of people who have contributed via Kickstarter. Unlike Jodorowsky’s Twitter-funded film, […]

By Elias Savada. There are problems a-plenty in Vero Beach, Florida, and after watching them dribble forth in the lame ensemble comedy I Do…Until I Don’t, I feel that this piece of sunshiny beach would be the last place on earth I’d want to live. While Florida does have a […]

By Elias Savada. Always light-hearted and entertaining, the deadpan road films featuring the improvisation talents of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon have christened their third voyage, The Trip to Spain, after the duo had previously traipsed through Northern England and Italy. This casual excursion, like previous ones, offers up a multitude […]