By Amir Ganjavie. Filmmaker Sanna Lenken’s debut feature, My Skinny Sister, concentrates on the societal problem of the eating disorder anorexia by investigating the love-hate relationship between two sisters. The winner of the Crystal Bear at Berlinale as well as an audience award at the Goteborg Film Festival, My Skinny […]
Bitter Earth: Alex Ross Perry’s Queen of Earth
September 28, 2015
By James Slaymaker. Alex Ross Perry’s latest feature, Queen of Earth, explores similar thematic territory to his first three (Impolex, The Color Wheel and Listen Up Philip), but marks a radical expansion of his artistic palette in regards to both form and content. What largely makes the film fascinating when considered alongside his existing […]
Monstrous Gaze: The Quandary of Spectatorship in La dolce vita
September 28, 2015
By William Repass. In the thematic arc formed by Fellini’s body of work, La dolce vita (1960) can be said to represent a pivot: his first film in which various reactions—against a repressive Catholic milieu, against the formal and ideological constraints of Italian neo-realism—coalesce into a fully-realized counter-aesthetic, incontestable both […]
Announcing the Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Series in Law, Culture and the Humanities
September 25, 2015
Fairleigh Dickinson University Press invites the submission of proposals for books, monographs, or essay collections focused on law as portrayed in the moving image and other fields in the humanities. Possible topics range from scholarship on law and film/television, law and critical/cultural studies, law and society, law and the performing arts, law […]
Film Scratches: Connecting Personal and National History in The Royal Road (2015)
September 24, 2015
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 Royal Road, Jenni Olson’s thoughtful and beautiful essay film on love, longing, the movies, and California history, has received […]
Emptying Myself: Doona Bae on Performance and A Girl At My Door
September 23, 2015
By Paul Risker. The art of film performance offers an actor the chance to explore identity in an intimate medium. But there are those characters that resonate powerfully with an actor as she undertakes the journey of lifting her role off the page. For Korean actress Doona Bae, A Girl At My Door represented such an encounter. […]
The Guy Who Never Grew Up: Five Easy Pieces
September 21, 2015
By Jude Warne. “I move around a lot, not because I’m looking for anything really, but because I’m getting away from things that get bad if I stay,” says Bobby Dupea (Jack Nicholson), the protagonist of Bob Rafelson’s 1970 classic Five Easy Pieces. Bobby Dupea is The Guy who Never […]
The 2015 New York Film Festival Shorts Program
September 21, 2015
By Gary M. Kramer. The New York Film Festival is a terrific showcase for shorts, and this year, there are four short film programs with international, genre, animation, and New York themes that feature many worthwhile films. Here is a sampling of the best shorts from each anthology. In the […]
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation: The Indefatigable Action Spectacle
September 14, 2015
By Kyle Huffman. Every action movie relies on the audience’s suspension of disbelief regarding the humanity and dexterity of its star. Some, like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, portray themselves as tank-like monuments of granite that through sheer force of will annihilate all in their path. Others, like Bruce Willis […]
Nordic Cat-and-Mouse: on the Series Øyevitne (Eyewitness)
September 14, 2015
By Paul Risker. The latest Nordic series Øyevitne (Eyewitness, 2014) adds to the UK audience’s seemingly insatiable demand for foreign language crime drama, particularly from the Nordic sphere. With yet another strong female character whose strength emerges through less her physical prowess and more her cerebral and spirited personality, Øyevitne’s […]