By Christopher Sharrett. William S. Burroughs is often regarded as the King of the Beats, the central figure of the Beat Generation who mentored Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, telling them what books to read. Or he is seen as the ultimate loon of American literature, shooting and killing his […]
Subtle and Formidable: Mustang
January 11, 2016
By Elias Savada. The emotional stability of five delightfully effervescent sisters is mightily tested in Mustang, a biting and anguishing indictment of conservative religious ideology set in present day northern Turkey. It’s a powerful debut feature from Deniz Gamze Ergüven, a Turkish-born cinephile educated in Paris and Johannesburg, who displays an […]
Collaborating on Conflict: Tobias Lindholm and Pilou Asbaek on A War
By Paul Risker. What is a list of titles that comprises a filmmaker or actor’s filmography if it is not a series of footsteps on a journey? A War (2016) represents a continuation, of two sets of footprints side by side as writer/director Tobias Lindholm and actor Pilou Asbaek continue their […]
Filming Addiction: Steven McCarthy on O Negative
January 8, 2016
By Tom Ue. Steven McCarthy was born in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. An actor, musician, and theatre director, he appeared in Kate Melville’s Picture Day (2012), which played the Toronto International Film Festival. O Negative (2015), his directorial debut, follows a man (McCarthy) who tries to care for and find shelter […]
Fragments of the Past in Pastoral: To Die in the Country
January 7, 2016
By Giuseppe Sedia. In a certain way, Shûji Terayama never reached a point in his career when he felt the need to retrace his childhood. More truly, his multidisciplinary body of work, taken as whole, can be considered as an uninterrupted meditation on his past. Nevertheless, the Japanese cineaste never adopted a […]
Madam Secretary: The Happy Family in Time of War
By Christopher Sharrett. When I first took note of the television series Madam Secretary (2014-), I assumed it was a sort of promotional piece for Hillary Clinton. It may indeed be this, but its connection to the real world is more substantial and significant, telling us a great deal, if […]
Wild Boys of ’80s – Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films
By Sotiris Petridis. Filmmaker Mark Hartley’s (2008’s Not Quite Hollywood, 2010’s Machete Maidens Unleashed!) latest delightful chronicle of B-movie splendor, Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films, spotlights the story of a production company run by two eccentric Israeli cousins, Menahem Golan (1929-2014) and Yoram Globus (1941- ). Created in 1967 […]
A Debut in the Wastelands: John Maclean on Slow West
By Paul Risker. Slow West (2015) finds a young filmmaker stepping onto the landscape of an established genre: America’s own, the Western. It is a journey onto an old and familiar stage that offsets Scottish writer/director John Maclean’s youthful career. Slow West is his feature directorial debut, preceded only by couple of […]
Nordic Noir to the British Isles: Richard Laxton on River
December 23, 2015
By Paul Risker. There is a certain air of excitement, or rather, anticipation that comes with the arrival of a new detective walking the trail of mystery in the crime genre. This can be attributed to the recent success the genre has found in the Nordic Noir phenomenon and which has […]
“I Gotta Be Me”: Thoughts on Hitchcock/Truffaut
December 23, 2015
By Elias Savada. I still remember buying the paperback book Hitchcock/Truffaut. I found the English version, originally published in 1967 by Simon & Schuster, a few years after college, probably in the stacks at the Strand Book Store in New York City. It was an easy, enjoyable read with lots of […]