Review

A Book Review by Tony Williams. Berghahn is known for its publication of excellent books on German Cinema within its catalog. This recent work proves no exception to the rule. Including fifteen essays by well-known scholars in the field aware of the changing complexities of subject matter and well-versed in […]

by Kate Hearst. A renaissance of teen films about sexuality has energized French cinema in recent years with works by Abdellatif Kechiche, Céline Sciamma, and Katell Quillevere, among others. Now, in Being 17, veteran filmmaker André Téchiné brings his unique sensibility to examine the complex inter-play of sexual awakening and […]

By Elias Savada. In Hollywood, when you hear the words “alien invasion,” you might expect any manner of shoot-’em-up movies like Independence Day (1996) or Edge of Tomorrow (2014), among many other rousing popcorn-munching action pictures that have landed in our planet’s multiplexes. Arrival is a bit different. It is a wildly satisfying “alien […]

By Jessica Baxter. You could never accuse writer/director Anna Biller of masking her influences. She has, to date, painstakingly created two films that would fit seamlessly within the sexploitation genre of the 60s and 70s. She follows up her sexual revolution comedy debut, Viva (2007), with The Love Witch, a […]

By John Duncan Talbird. We open Don’t Call Me Son on Pierre (astonishing newcomer Naomi Nero), pleasantly drunk or high, beautiful and mascaraed with long, wild hair, loping through a party, teens dancing by themselves or in pairs to electronic music. The handheld camera follows him and we see that […]

By William Repass.  In Kieślowski’s 1981[1] metaphysical/political triptych, Blind Chance, the subtlest of details cut across three alternate storylines to triangulate a Poland on the verge of Solidarity. Take, for example, which drink the protagonist Witek (Bogusław Linda) favors in each divergence following the train station scene—a hinge, as it […]

By Elias Savada. I know a lot of people who would love The Pickle Recipe, a low budget feature (made lower by Michigan’s now-defunct location incentive program), about a grandmother’s treasured secret cucumber process and the family members trying to claw it away from her. “A metaphor for life,” according […]

By John Duncan Talbird. Soupy Sales, on his legendary children’s show in the 1950s, encouraged his audience to write letters to him, but in twenty-five words or less. One member of the television viewing audience, James Osterberg, Jr., was a devoted fan and he saw that word count as liberating not […]

By Tony Williams. Cat People has long enjoyed a high reputation amongst discriminating members of the critical fraternity for its deserved status as well as its close links to film noir. Did it not emerge from the studio that produced Citizen Kane (1941), a film which, if not the first […]

By Brandon Konecny.  After scamming some passersby for lunch money, Marian and Petro sit in a tiny restaurant in the Republic of Moldova, Europe’s poorest country. Petro devours the food arrayed on their table while Marian sits with his eyes fixed on the floor. Marian interrupts Petro’s unremitting chewing when […]