By Jeremy Carr. Since the release of Noah Baumbach’s 2015 documentary on Brian De Palma, the legendary filmmaker, who has for decades enjoyed a proud and vocal group of supporters, has become a grand cause célèbre for hip cinephiles eager to look back at even his most widely maligned films […]
Performing Gender and Self: Anup Singh’s Qissa
April 3, 2017
By Devapriya Sanyal. Qissa (“fable”), Anup Singh’s second directorial venture (2013; released in India in 2015), deals with many issues at the same time, with all its characters equally important. But this film belongs to the Sikh Punjabi character Umber Singh (played by Irrfan Khan). Beginning in the present, the film visits the past […]
Frantz and the Gentle Art of Forgiveness
March 31, 2017
By Elias Savada. Let’s refresh: the films of French writer-director François Ozon tend to be sly, unsettling, and daring observations of the human condition, whether playing with a 1950s musical mystery (8 femmes [8 Women], 2002), diving into a provocative thriller (Swimming Pool, 2003), offering some froth in the 2010 wife-empowered […]
Shopping for Ghosts: Olivier Assayas’ Personal Shopper
March 27, 2017
By Elias Savada. As I watched Personal Shopper, I wondered if this new, mostly English-language film from French filmmaker Olivier Assayas was a Euro thriller or not. I certainly wasn’t on the edge of my seat. The premise in this French-German production is that Maureen Cartwright (Kristen Stewart), a weary, despondent […]
More Than Plays on Film: Marcel Pagnol’s “Marseille Trilogy” Restored by Janus Films
By Christopher Weedman. Janus Films’ stunning 4K restoration of the “Marseille Trilogy” by the esteemed Marcel Pagnol is one of the essential revivals of the year. Adapted from Pagnol’s stage plays set in the provincial port city of Marseille in southern France, the three installments – Marius (Alexander Korda, 1931), […]
The Controversy of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Nasser’s Republic, The Making of Modern Egypt
March 22, 2017
By Neila Driss. Michal Goldman’s documentary, Nasser’s Republic, The Making of Modern Egypt (2016), was screened on November 20th during the 38th edition of the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF). Criticized by some viewers for historical inaccuracies, it got a stormy reception, and Goldman herself was in attendance to field […]
Hugs vs. Handshakes: Life’s Battles in Donald Cried
By Elias Savada. The indie movie Donald Cried joins a growing number of feature films based on a short subject (among my small-budget faves: 1995’s Sling Blade and 2004’s Napoleon Dynamite). It’s a fine feature debut for director (also co-writer, star) Kris Avedisian, based on his 22-minute oil-and-water bromance from 2012, in […]
Keep Telling Yourself, It’s Not a Vacation – Kong: Skull Island
March 11, 2017
By Elias Savada. Kong: Skull Island, Hollywood’s latest outing for its furry Eighth Wonder of the World, has arrived in an energetic, well-mounted, 3-D, IMAX-sized package. King Kong (1933), the species’ black-and-white, ground-breaking original, still reigns as the best big ape/deity movie ever. The new reboot of the monster, despite a somewhat […]
Well-Wrought and Old-Fashioned: Robin Wood’s The Apu Trilogy (New Edition)
March 10, 2017
A Book Review by John Duncan Talbird. The film critic Robin Wood (1931-2009) was one of those writers who helped the general public to take cinema seriously as an art form and who, like many critics of the sixties – at least the ones who didn’t become filmmakers themselves – would […]
Ready, Ink, Go!: 24 Hour Comic
By Elias Savada. Ever wonder what it’s like to spend a long day in the life with a comic book artist? Or maybe eight of them? Dream no more, as 24 Hour Comic offers an interesting look inside the creative minds of some of the disposable/collectible medium’s brightest architects, when […]