By Christopher Sharrett. Crewdson’s photos remind us how photography preceded cinema with its peculiar psychological impulses, provoking viewers to want more insight into being as images ‘redeemed physical reality.’” I write this short piece on photographer Gregory Crewdson for a film/television journal with the simple rationale that Crewdson’s photographs, as […]
Exit Stage Left: No Pay, Nudity
October 29, 2016
By Elias Savada. The directorial debut for Lee Wilkof – a long-time character actor in all forms of media and on many a stage – No Pay, Nudity is one for the art house crowd. Yet, even “art house” folks may have issues with the bland story line (by actor-turned-feature-debut screenwriter Ethan […]
Miss Sharon Jones!: Success and Other Crises
By Kate Hearst. Renewed interest in black female singers sparked the release last year of two documentaries focused on voices of the Civil Rights movement: What Happened, Miss Simone? about the late soul singer and activist Nina Simone, and Mavis! featuring gospel singer Mavis Staples and the Staple Singers. In […]
The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger (2016)
October 19, 2016
By Mark James. Most of us probably remember John Berger as the host of Ways of Seeing, a four-part 1972 television series that he created for BBC where Berger educated the nation about looking at art, effectively demonstrating that one can discuss the so called ‘Old Masters’ in ways that […]
Command and Control: Is Our Nuclear Luck Running Out?
October 15, 2016
By Elias Savada. I had nearly forgotten about that nuclear blip a third of a century ago, the one which is the core of Robert Kenner’s new feature Command and Control. It was a missile crisis that nearly wiped out Arkansas and a nice chunk of the United States. So, are […]
Indignity in Sweet Mode: A Man Called Ove
October 7, 2016
By Gary M. Kramer. The title character of A Man Called Ove would probably not see the heartwarming Swedish film, A Man Called Ove, adapted from Fredrik Backman’s national bestseller (2012, English translation in 2013). He is far too cynical, and would call this gentle comedy-drama “mush nonsense.” Still, this […]
A Multicultural Magnificent Seven for Our Times
October 6, 2016
By Kate Hearst. Antoine Fuqua’s The Magnificent Seven showcases a multiracial cast of personalities who collaborate to defeat a murderous robber baron on the American frontier. The overall cinematic spectacle of teamwork among this star-studded collection of lone gunslingers, led by Denzel Washington, is as deeply satisfying as the 1960 […]
A Fun Swansong: The Last Film Festival
By Christopher Weedman. The Last Film Festival’s comedic glimpse into the behind-the-scenes politics and turmoil that surround film festivals began as a joke between the film’s writer-producer-director Linda Yellen and its late iconic star Dennis Hopper during an encounter at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival. When she asked him what […]
The Celluloid Collector World That Dreams are Made Of: A Thousand Cuts by Dennis Bartok and Jeff Joseph
A Book Review by Tony Williams. Written by two former dealers in this area, A Thousand Cuts: The Bizarre Underground World of Collectors and Dealers Who Saved the Movies (University of Mississippi Press, 2016) offers readers a cinematic magical mystery tour into the now diminishing world of film collectors, a […]
The New World: Exploring the Developing Territory of Terrence Malick
October 4, 2016
By Jeremy Carr. During post-production on The New World (2005), director Terrence Malick said it would be the last time he made a movie with a plot. Given the film’s free-form audio-visual flow and its loose narrative construct, the statement was met with some amusement. Plot though there may be, […]