By Brandon Konecny. Moldova is currently the least visited country in Europe, attracting fewer tourists each year than Juneau, Alaska. So when you meet someone visiting from another country during your stay in Moldova, you instantly have readymade discussion topics, such as “What brings you to Moldova?” or “Have you […]
The Ground Holds the History: Dragos Turea’s Soviet Garden (2019)
October 31, 2019
By Brandon Konecny. During Nikita Khrushchev’s tenure, he wanted to make Moldova an agricultural powerhouse. The “Garden of the Soviet Union,” he called it. Vegetables, fruits, wines, juices: all were going to come from the USSR’s second smallest republic. But how was a country that’s a quarter of Indiana’s size supposed […]
Let the Glory Flow – Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the Movie Palace
Elias Savada
October 28, 2019
By Elias Savada. April Wright likes to get the word out about grand things. As with Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the American Drive-In Movie (available on Amazon Prime and iTunes), her thoughtful 2013 ode to the outdoor moviegoing experience, she has offered up another loving, exhaustive tribute to […]
Working Toward Recovery: Fassbinder’s ‘BRD Trilogy’
Jeremy Carr
October 25, 2019
By Jeremy Carr. Over the span of five years, from 1979 to 1982, Rainer Werner Fassbinder directed three films dealing with the tumultuous, complex, and contentious early period of the Federal Republic of Germany (in that time, he also made three other features and a 14-part mini-series). Known as the […]
Refusal to Respond – David Shields and Lynch: A History
Matthew Sorrento
October 22, 2019
By Matthew Sorrento. Review Filmmaker David Shields found an ideal style to document the onscreen (but off the field) career of NFL running back Marshawn Lynch (2007-18). Far from a fan documentary, Lynch: A History uses collage to portray the news media’s possession and the public’s consumption of a star player […]
Three from the Open City Documentary Festival 2019
October 21, 2019
By Ali Moosavi. Three interesting documentaries screened at the Open City Documentary Festival in London, September 4-10, 2019. Sergei Loznitsa, the distinguished Ukrainian director known for films such as A Gentle Creature (2017) and Donbass (2018), in fact started off as a documentary filmmaker. In his return, Trial (2018), he has put […]
Father’s Day: Family, Masculinity and Ant Timpson’s Come to Daddy (Fantastic Fest)
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
October 17, 2019
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. There’s a scene in Ant Timpson’s debut feature Come to Daddy where Elijah Wood’s character, Norval Greenwood, is being verbally abused with such an extraordinarily blend of both cruelty and swear words that by the time actual physical violence rears its head, it’s almost a relief. Cringefully […]
Joker: Notes from Underground
Christopher Sharrett
October 16, 2019
By Christopher Sharrett. In what follows I am conscious that Todd Phillips’ Joker is another addition by a corporation to its “DC universe,” although it is spoken of as a “stand alone” film (with no relevance to comic book mythology?). I am also aware that many aren’t interested in this […]
Before Kane – Marching Song: A Play by Orson Welles with Roger Hill, Edited by Todd Tarbox
October 14, 2019
A Book Review Essay by Tony Williams. As we move further into the new millennium, we appear to benefit not only from development of new technologies enabling access to visual material previously unavailable, but also the emergence of important documents sometimes referred to but usually inaccessible to the general reader outside […]
Juvenile Offender: Nicholas Winding Refn’s Too Old To Die Young
James Slaymaker
October 13, 2019
By James Slaymaker. It’s been less than a decade since the momentous critical and commercial success of Drive catapulted Nicolas Winding Refn from niche provocateur to international household name, yet the idea that the director was once poised to take the film industry by storm already seems patently ridiculous. Refn […]