By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. Born and raised in New Zealand, filmmaker Daniel Joseph Borgman has traveled from one of the most southernmost cities at the bottom of the planet to its near-opposite end, establishing his career as one of the more fascinating immigrants working in Denmark’s thriving film industry. Having studied […]
A Time of Transition: Yasujirô Ozu’s Tokyo Twilight
Jeremy Carr
November 7, 2019
By Jeremy Carr. There are, in Tokyo Twilight (Tokyo Boshoku), many of the familiar refrains common to Yasujirô Ozu’s conspicuously singular filmmaking. There are the generational disparities, the struggles pertaining to familial strife, the social and sexual stigmas and their related expectations, and the ever-present suggestion of life slowly slipping […]
1984, Revisited in 1984 (The Criterion Collection)
Tony Williams
November 6, 2019
By Tony Williams. Although envisaged before the rise of Trump and his campaign hate clarion calls of “Send her back!” etc., on the part of his devoted base who love him as much as Orwell’s Party wants its victims to love Big Brother, 1984 contains resonances far beyond its initial […]
A War Film without War?: Natalia Shaufert’s Resentment (2019)
Brandon Konecny
November 5, 2019
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 […]