A Book Review by Louis J. Wasser. Silent film great Harry Langdon died at sixty of a cerebral hemorrhage three years before Christmas day in 1944. He died broke; and Mabel, his third wife, with the help of a friend, managed to secure employment immediately at the Motion Picture Relief […]
Marketable Polish Melancholy: Paweł Pawlikowski’s Cold War
September 4, 2018
By Alex Ramon. Without a doubt, the biggest Polish cinematic success of the past decade has been Paweł Pawlikowski’s 2013 film Ida. Feted first at Toronto, the film went on to win acclaim and awards at numerous high-profile international events, culminating in the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film (Poland’s first) […]
“We Cannot Live Without Ford”: An Interview with Tag Gallagher
September 3, 2018
By Jake Rutkowski. I confess I was intimidated by the prospect of interviewing Tag Gallagher regarding John Ford: Himself and his Movies. His initial study of the director, John Ford: the Man and His Films (1986), was a massive biography and exegesis of an entire oeuvre, matching prolific artistic output with […]
Unfulfilled Desire: The Bookshop
August 31, 2018
By Janine Gericke. Based on the novel by Penelope Fitzgerald, Isabel Coixet’s The Bookshop takes place in a conservative coastal village in 1950’s England (though the backdrop is actually Northern Ireland). Florence Green (Emily Mortimer) is a widow who moves to the seaside town to follow her dream of opening […]
A Life of Contradictions: Trine Dyrholm on Nico, 1988
By Travis Merchant. A biopic usually comes with a load of questions for a viewer: How much of the subject’s life will we see? Will everything be true? Where will the film take us? Often times, it’s difficult to capture every second of someone’s life. Because of that, films like […]
Crossing Over with a Light Touch: Mauricio Ochmann on Ya Veremos
August 29, 2018
By Gary M. Kramer. Actor Mauricio Ochmann has become a popular leading man in Mexican cinema. He worked steadily in television before achieving some big screen success in hits such as A la mala, a romantic comedy that co-starred Aislinn Derbez, whom he would later marry. Last year, he and […]
Scattershot Disorder(s) in Rene Daalder’s Hysteria
August 27, 2018
By Alex Brannan. A quick search into the work of Rene Daalder yields an interesting array of artistic pieces varied in concept, medium, and scope. The writer, director, and digital effects artist has worked with various musical acts such as Devo and Supertramp. In his early days, he was a frequent […]
The New Delicate Balance: Support the Girls
August 25, 2018
By Janine Gericke. How do we balance work, family, friends, everything in our lives without breaking? This relatable film is a study of working class America with echoes of the #MeToo movement and discrimination in the workplace. Director Andrew Bujalski’s newest film Support the Girls is an entertaining look into […]
Smash Palace, A Wreck in Slow Motion
August 23, 2018
By John Duncan Talbird. New Zealand’s short-lived new wave came quite a bit after most other national cinemas’ new waves. Kick-started by the New Zealand Film Commission with tax breaks for filmmakers, it fell apart just a few years later when those tax loopholes were closed up again. Geoff Murphy (Wild […]
States of Independence: the 8th Transatlantyk Festival, Łódź, Poland (July 2018)
August 23, 2018
By Alex Ramon. “You need an independent spirit if you’re going to go into film or music: so many people will tell you that you can’t do it,” said Diane Warren, on stage at Łódź’s EC1, a former power station now transformed into a vibrant cultural and exhibition centre in […]