A Book Review Essay by Tony Williams. Usually, I’m hesitant when presented with another biography for review. Despite the dedication and research involved, there often occurs a fundamental similarity in approach and, sometimes, lack of critical and insightful qualities when covering the actor’s films themselves. What makes them distinctive? Is […]
Danish Redux: After the Wedding
August 27, 2019
By Elias Savada. Sad to say, but it wasn’t a good idea for American filmmaker Bart Freundlich to remake the Oscar-nominated Best Foreign Language Feature Efter Brylluppet (After the Wedding), the 2006 film from Danish writer-director Susanne Bier. Bier, whose 2004 Danish war drama Brødre (Brothers) was also rejiggered for […]
Compelling, if Problematic: William Friedkin’s Crusing (Arrow Video)
August 25, 2019
By Gary M. Kramer. Arrow Films’ new Blu-ray edition of William Friedkin’s Cruising offers viewers the opportunity to reconsider this “controversial” thriller nearly 40 years after it was initially released. The film is fascinating, not just because of its history – the gay community disrupted the film’s shooting and objected to […]
A Subjective and Concise Triumph – The Palestinian Idea: Film, Media and the Radical Imagination by Greg Burris
August 24, 2019
A Book Review Essay by Ali Moosavi. There is an old adage that oppression and suppression fuels creativity. In the world of cinema, this is best exemplified in Palestinian Cinema. For a nation of less than five million people, it is undoubtedly the shining star in the Arab Cinema. In […]
An Invigorating Romp: Murray Pomerance’s A Dream of Hitchcock
August 24, 2019
A Book Review by John W. Fawell. The title of Murray Pomerance’s latest book on the films of Alfred Hitchcock, A Dream of Hitchcock (SUNY Press, 2018), refers to both the book’s content and its form. Pomerance means this book to be a study of the recurring motif of dreams […]
Coming of Age, in Detail: Third Wife
Janine Gericke
August 22, 2019
By Janine Gericke. There is a significant amount of symbolism throughout Ash Mayfair’s feature debut The Third Wife. The director and cinematographer Chananun Chotrungroj juxtapose the nuances of the lush natural settings of Vietnam with the rigid 19th-century patriarchal society surrounding the film’s female characters. The film follows 14-year-old May […]
The Journey, Not the Destination: Godard x 3 from Kino Lorber
Jeremy Carr
August 21, 2019
By Jeremy Carr. After concluding what was ostensibly his second phase of filmmaking – if one accepts the admittedly blurred lines that divide a comparatively commercial feature like Weekend (1967) and the ultra-political, pseudo-documentary works of his so-called Dziga Vertov period – Jean-Luc Godard embarked on the third major stage in his career. Launching […]
The Truth Lies….: Cold Case Hammarskjöld
August 19, 2019
By Michael Sandlin. It’s now been eight years since Scandinavian prankster filmmaker Mads Brugger donned his pith helmet and jodhpurs in Angola to impersonate a blood diamond buyer – recording on film the whole farcical mess that ensues for his 2011 documentary feature The Ambassador. Now mad Mads is back in Africa in […]
City of Losers, Losing City: Pacino, New York, and the New Hollywood Cinema
Heather Hendershot
August 19, 2019
By Heather Hendershot. The following is excerpted from When the Movies Mattered: The New Hollywood Revisited, edited by Jonathan Kirshner and Jon Lewis (Cornell University Press, 2019), by permission of the press. In 1965, John Lindsay beat out Abraham Beame and William F. Buckley Jr. to be elected mayor of New […]
An Old Soul Gone Too Soon: Love, Antosha
Yun-hua Chen
August 16, 2019
By Yun-hua Chen. Paying tribute to the late actor Anton Yelchin’s life, this biographical documentary extends far beyond his acting career. As Garret Price’s directorial debut premiered at the Sundance three years after the freak car accident in 2016 which took Yelchin’s life at the age of 27, the film […]