By Ali Moosavi. Taylor Sheridan has written the script for a couple of terrific thrillers recently: Sicario and Hell or High Water. This year he is in Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section as a director with another great noir, Wind River (only his second feature after 2011’s little […]
Super Troopers, or Super Dupers? Superheroes on World Screens, Edited by Rayna Denison and Rachel Mizsei-Ward
A Book Review by Tony Williams. Before you can say “Meryl Streep”, “Mamma Mia”, “Shazam”, in addition to the many superheroes and heroines and recent critical studies, Superheroes on World Screens (University Press of Mississippi, 2016) co-edited by two “Wonder Women” appears. Despite the earlier necessary demolition done by William Klein […]
Haneke Does Happy: Happy End (Cannes 2017 Review)
By Ali Moosavi. Michael Haneke’s new film Happy End played at the Official Competition section at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Haneke is a Cannes veteran, having won the Palm d’Or for Amour and The White Ribbon, Best Director for Hidden, and Grand Jury Prize for The Piano Teacher. Happy End […]
A Caricature of Godard: Michel Hazanavicius’s Redoubtable (2017 Cannes Review)
May 22, 2017
By Ali Moosavi. Michel Hazanavicius became a cinema celebrity six years ago at Cannes where The Artist became the sensation of the festival and went on to win several Oscars, including Best Film, Director, and Actor. This year Hazanavicius is back at Cannes, in the Official Competition category with Redoubtable. It […]
The 36th Istanbul Film Festival: Golden Tulip Scents in Istanbul
May 20, 2017
By N. Buket Cengiz. No matter how much face Turkey loses on the international stage particularly with its friction with European countries, Istanbul Film Festival is a phenomenon in Turkey that has always been and will always be a symbol of international communication and collaboration. The 36th edition held on […]
Tribeca Talks: Alejandro González Iñárritu and Marina Abramović
May 20, 2017
By Gary M. Kramer. This year, at the Tribeca Film Festival, one of the Tribeca Talks programs featured Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu being interviewed by Yugoslavia-born artist, Marina Abramović. “She is the queen,” says Iñárritu, acknowledging Abramović grandly as they arrived on stage. “I’m super-nervous.” The artist opened the […]
Be There Demons? A Dark Song Looks for the Answer
May 19, 2017
By Elias Savada. Grief changes you. It can drive you to do dark and drastic things outside your normal routine. Such aberrations are the creepy core of Irish director Liam Gavin’s moody chamber piece, A Dark Song. This excursion into the realm of magick was influenced by the life and strange […]
The Splendid “Zone”: Tarkovsky’s Stalker Restoration by Mosfilm
May 18, 2017
By Anthony Uzarowski. Whenever a film gets digitally restored and reissued after a considerable amount of time passes from its initial release, the first question that comes to mind is: is it still relevant? This is especially true of works by renowned filmmakers, auteurs whose artistic voices defined their own time […]
The Young Girls of Rochefort: Nearly Utopia
By Christopher Sharrett. I somehow conflate in my mind’s eye images of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg/The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and Les Demoiselles de Rochefort/The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) with images of my experiences of the late Sixties. This seems odd, since these masterworks by Jacques Demy, although fully-accomplished […]
International Films abound at the 27th Annual Washington Jewish Film Festival
By Elias Savada. Twenty-seven years on, the Washington Jewish Film Festival remains a vibrant part of the Nation’s Capital scene. As the area’s largest Jewish cultural event, the 12-day program of documentary and narrative movies, running from May 17-28, will feature 63 features and 18 short films representing 25 countries. […]