By John Duncan Talbird. A few years ago, I was with my wife in some Brooklyn hamburger joint waiting for our food. It was one of those places where you are given an electronic device that vibrates when your food is on the tray and ready to consume. My device […]
Film Scratches: Music from the Noise – M. Woods’ Post-Panoptic Gazing (2015)
June 7, 2016
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. Post-Panoptic Gazing is M. Woods’ delirious, omnivorous mashup of original and found footage, both digital and celluloid. Woods plunges the viewer […]
“Spielberg Doesn’t Know Everything”: Neil Marshall on the Lifelong Education of Filmmaking
June 6, 2016
By Paul Risker. Since his feature debut Dog Soldiers (2002), Neil Marshall has developed a career across film and television, directing the action and genre pictures The Descent (2005), Doomsday (2008) and Centurion (2010), while directing episodes of Hannibal (2013-15), Black Sails (2014-), Constantine (2014-15) and Game of Thrones (2011-). As […]
Beyoncé’s Lemonade: She Dreams in Both Worlds
By Lisa Perrott, Holly Rogers, and Carol Vernallis. Beyoncé calls Lemonade a “visual album.” There’s been buzz about the image of Beyoncé smashing up cars, and a lot of talk about the autobiographical themes of the lyrics (lines like “better call Becky with the good hair” have been getting attention for the […]
The 35th Istanbul Film Festival
June 2, 2016
By Rob Lewis. Tickets? Check. Popcorn? Check. Bottle of water? Check. Notebook? Check. Festival Guide? Check. It’s 107 minutes long. That means if I leave before the credits and take a taxi, I can reach the Feriye in time for the 7 p.m. showing. Isn’t that my old teacher/classmate/someone I once chatted […]
A Journey of Lost Souls: Dheepan
June 2, 2016
By Elias Savada. French director-writer Jacques Audiard, a multiple Cannes Film Festival prize nominee and winner, and constant trophy collector at the César (French Oscar) ceremonies, should find a welcoming audience here in America with Dheepan. Here’s a brave, bittersweet tale about three unrelated Sri Lankan refugees cast adrift in France, […]
The Paranoid Political Thriller Three Days of the Condor
June 2, 2016
By Chris Neilan. They may never have matched the creative successes of Scorsese & De Niro, the genre-defining feats of John Wayne & John Ford, or earned the cinephile kudos of Allen & Keaton, but as director-star partnerships go it’s hard to beat Sidney Pollack and Robert Redford for longevity […]
Nathan Adloff on Volleyball, Technology, and the 90s of Miles
By Tom Ue. Nathan Adloff made his feature film debut with Nate & Margaret, for which he was director, co-writer, and producer. It sold for worldwide distribution prior to completion and received a commendatory review from Roger Ebert. Nathan acted in Joe Swanberg’s early films and IFC series. His short film […]
Park Row: Spotlight’s Other Forefather
May 28, 2016
By Paul Risker. It would be all too easy to label Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight (2015) as this generation’s All the President’s Men (1976). Alan J. Pakula’s film, based on the Watergate scandal, featuring Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman), has the status of a […]
In Praise of Susan Oliver: The Green Girl (2014)
May 26, 2016
By Tony Williams. “She was so much more than the Green woman in Star Trek” (George Pappy DVD audio-commentary). “What I knew I didn’t want was to just get married and become a housewife and lose my identity.” (Oliver: 81) Produced and directed by George Pappy, who also co-wrote the script […]