By Brandon Konecny. It has been suggested, sometimes by Moldovan film professionals themselves, that cinema does not currently exist in the Republic of Moldova, Europe’s poorest and perhaps least known country. At first blush, we might feel inclined to accept this assertion. After all, Moldova’s cinema was virtually nonexistent in […]
The Controversy of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Nasser’s Republic, The Making of Modern Egypt
March 22, 2017
By Neila Driss. Michal Goldman’s documentary, Nasser’s Republic, The Making of Modern Egypt (2016), was screened on November 20th during the 38th edition of the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF). Criticized by some viewers for historical inaccuracies, it got a stormy reception, and Goldman herself was in attendance to field […]
Kentucky Fried Chicken in the Moonlight
By Orville Lloyd Douglas. Black people are still mentally enslaved; even in the 21st century there is a psychic need by some Black artists to seek white approval and acceptance. The universal acclaim of the independent film Moonlight is due to white film critics, most heterosexual. Black films are made […]
Film Scratches: History Seen Backwards – The Rubric Timestamped (2014)
March 21, 2017
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. The Rubric Timestamped is a strange and richly poetic 9-minute film by Luke Szabados, a young American filmmaker. The first shot […]
Film Scratches: Receiving a Face – Scrapbook (2015)
March 21, 2017
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. Scrapbook is a haunting and fascinating 19-minute short by Mike Hoolboom, based on footage shot in 1967 at Broadview, an Ohio […]
Hugs vs. Handshakes: Life’s Battles in Donald Cried
By Elias Savada. The indie movie Donald Cried joins a growing number of feature films based on a short subject (among my small-budget faves: 1995’s Sling Blade and 2004’s Napoleon Dynamite). It’s a fine feature debut for director (also co-writer, star) Kris Avedisian, based on his 22-minute oil-and-water bromance from 2012, in […]
Keep Telling Yourself, It’s Not a Vacation – Kong: Skull Island
March 11, 2017
By Elias Savada. Kong: Skull Island, Hollywood’s latest outing for its furry Eighth Wonder of the World, has arrived in an energetic, well-mounted, 3-D, IMAX-sized package. King Kong (1933), the species’ black-and-white, ground-breaking original, still reigns as the best big ape/deity movie ever. The new reboot of the monster, despite a somewhat […]
Well-Wrought and Old-Fashioned: Robin Wood’s The Apu Trilogy (New Edition)
March 10, 2017
A Book Review by John Duncan Talbird. The film critic Robin Wood (1931-2009) was one of those writers who helped the general public to take cinema seriously as an art form and who, like many critics of the sixties – at least the ones who didn’t become filmmakers themselves – would […]
Work Through All the Fun and Rubbish: An Interview with Cinematographer Chris Challis
By David A. Ellis. Christopher Challis was born in Kensington, London on the 18th March 1919. His father was a motorcar designer and Challis was privately educated at Kings College in London. His first taste of the movie business was working for Gaumont British in their newsreel department. He was a […]
Protecting the Commons in 2017
March 8, 2017
Responding to Hate, Disenfranchisement, and the Loss of the Civil Sphere By Carol Vernallis. Many of us are terrified by the rise in Islamophobia and other racisms, misogyny and homophobia, threats to the environment and increased possibilities for nuclear war, the rise of surveillance and the limits on freedom of speech and […]