By David Ryan. Before United 93 opened ten years ago, the film’s previews were greeted with varying degrees of stress and grief. Although some theaters threatened to pull the previews to allay the pathos of its audience (the wounds still freshly felt in their hearts), only one New York theater […]
Iran at the Crossroads of Modernity and Virtuality: Mani Haghighi on A Dragon Arrives!
By Amir Ganjavie. The central questions in Western philosophy concern what is truth, reality, and right or wrong. Major sources of debate for Greek philosophers, these notions have become very problematic in our postmodern virtual world. As Jean Baudriallrd argues, it is no longer truth that shapes reality but rather reality which […]
Never Mean: Patton Oswalt’s Film Memoir, Silver Screen Fiend
April 12, 2016
A Book Review by John Duncan Talbird. Many film lovers will enjoy Patton Oswalt’s new memoir, Silver Screen Fiend, mainly because he’s one of us. He and his friends – “sprocket fiends” all – when they’re not lurking in revival houses or art house cinemas, spend their times arguing in […]
Film Scratches: Trojan Horse Malware Infecting Us All – H. by Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia
April 11, 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. H. (2014), a haunting and poetic new feature by Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia, presents motifs from the story of Helen of […]
Baskin: Blurred (Genre) Vision from Turkey
By Sotiris Petridis. Baskin (2015), the directorial feature film debut of Can Evrenol, is a modern Turkish horror film that deserves the attention of every horror aficionado, even if from a less likely country of origin. The film is based on Evrenol’s 2013 short film, which shares the same title […]
Letting Welsh Drama Breathe: Gareth Bryn on The Passing
April 11, 2016
By Paul Risker. The dark psychological drama The Passing (2016) is a moment in which the Welsh landscape is blighted by yet another brooding tale. Although just as characters of film are stalked by their dramatist creators who make them the prey of dramatic provocation, so too can the landscape be […]
Curating the 2016 Tribeca Shorts – A Conversation with Sharon Badal
April 9, 2016
By Gary M. Kramer. It’s Tribeca Film Festival time again, which means my annual conversation with Sharon Badal, curator of the festival’s shorts programs. This year’s fantastic line up offer some new programs: California Dreaming, which features stories from the other coast; Warped Speed, a first-ever Sci-Fi program (in honor […]
The Visual Beauty of Marguerite
April 8, 2016
By Cleaver Patterson. At one point, about half way into Marguerite (2015), the drama by French writer/director Xavier Giannoli, singing teacher Atos Pezzini (Michel Fau) is trying, diplomatically, to describe his pupil Marguerite Dumont (Catherine Frot) to some of those who have assembled to hear her latest performance. Where Marguerite […]
On Trauma, Loss, and Fatherhood: An Interview with Joachim Trier on Louder Than Bombs
April 7, 2016
By Amir Ganjavie. Louder Than Bombs, Joachim Trier’s third feature, tells the story of an aging schoolteacher (Gabriel Byrne) who grapples with the recent death of his wife (Isabelle Huppert) and tries to find a way to reconcile with his two sons (Jesse Eisenberg and Devin Druid). Quite a bold entry […]
Orlacs Hände: A Constant Dilemma
By Amy R. Handler. Reaching back to time’s beginnings, Orlacs Hände (1924) forever touched the future, but at what price? Robert Wiene’s cinematic interpretation of Maurice Renard’s Les Mains d’Orlac (1920), cannot be neatly labeled expressionist in spite of its creation near the end of Weimar’s expressionist movement. Certainly there […]