Series Editors David A. Cook – UNC Greensboro, USA Will Dodson – UNC Greensboro, USA The Anthem Series on Exploitation and Industry in World Cinema incorporates a broad range of scholarship on filmmakers, genres, cycles and national cinemas, focusing on ways in which exploitation filmmaking and distribution subsidize riskier commercial […]
Film Scratches: Re-Drawing the Table – La Mesa (2018)
September 30, 2019
Film Scratches focuses on the world of experimental and avant-garde film, especially as practiced by individual artists. It features a mixture of reviews, interviews, and essays. A Review by David Finkelstein. La Mesa, a ten minute experimental animation by Adrian Garcia Gomez, is a haunting cinematic poem, a beautifully constructed black and […]
On Programming Content and Context: 73rd Edinburgh International Film Festival in Review
Mina Radovic
September 30, 2019
By Mina Radovic. A lady patiently cleans her house. The yellow lights of Athens peer in through the windows as her husband smokes a cigarette and between puffs complains to her about his job situation. Her daughter walks past, asking for something new, and complaining about her brother. The family […]
Experimentation in NYC: NYFF Shorts 2019
September 30, 2019
By Gary M. Kramer. Two shorts programs at this year’s New York Film Festival are designed to provoke audiences. This is a welcome approach to short films, where the format encourages experimentation. As many of the films here attest, short films can yield some strong emotional responses by not following […]
Making America Dumb Again: The Death of Dick Long
Elias Savada
September 26, 2019
By Elias Savada. There’s a swarth of idiocy running through this so-called dark comedy, but for the most part it fails at being what I had hoped for: funny. Plenty of drollness, though that falls flat, too. Director Daniel Schienert (half of the team known as the Daniels, who made […]
Daredevils of the Red Circle and Other Cliffhangers: Hollywood (1939-1942) and Spy Smasher
September 24, 2019
“Daredevils of the Red Circle and Other Cliffhangers” is a blog on serials by Geoffrey Mayer, the author of Encyclopedia of American Film Serials (McFarland, 2017). The Hollywood studios, except one, studiously ignored Hitler and the fascists throughout the 1930s. The exception was Warner Brothers who, under the leadership of Harry Warner, tirelessly fought […]
Wild Women and the Great Karoo: Jenna Bass’s Flatland (Toronto International Film Festival)
September 24, 2019
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. South African filmmaker Jenna Bass has made somewhat of a splash with her third film, Flatland, as it makes its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival after it opened the Panorama section of the Berlinale earlier this year. Aside from previous features Love the One […]
Bringing the Magic To Her Music: Linda Ronstadt – The Sound of My Voice
Elias Savada
September 23, 2019
By Elias Savada. No, Linda Ronstadt is not dead. While Parkinson’s Disease has sadly removed her from the public and concert stage for over a decade, the joy of her music is heartwarmingly captured in this greatest-hits-and-more salute from award-winning filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. The extraordinarily talented artist, […]
A Young Woman’s Noble Fight: Ms. Purple
Yun-hua Chen
September 22, 2019
By Yun-hua Chen. Justin Chon, the American actor of Korean descent who made his name since his role as Eric in The Twilight Saga a decade ago, has established an increasingly distinct directorial voice addressing Asian-American stories and strikes a chord with ethnic minorities who rarely enter the mainstream in […]
Hitler is Not Your Friend: Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit (Toronto International Film Festival)
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
September 19, 2019
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. With its world premiere at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit functions as the final installment of the filmmaker’s informal trilogy that focuses on the subjective experience of boyhood. In 2010’s Boy, the eponymous protagonist is an 11-year-old played by James Rolleston, while in 2016’s […]